Hiraishin World Tour
by Legendary Legacy
Summary: You know, maybe there was a good reason why Naruto didn't learn Hiraishin no Jutsu during the time-skip...
1. Chapter 1

**EDIT 4/20/11: Finally got around to fixing all the missing scene-breaks in this story, so it should be easier to follow now. Also, chapter 7 is up. Check it out if you want.**

xxx

xxx

He looked so innocent when he was asleep. Laying there all curled up in a ball, drooling and making audible sucking noises as his hands grasped futilely at the unseen pair of objects that he was apparently dreaming about. He was just like a big baby.

"Murmm...oh, you're an F-cup, ain't 'cha?"

A big, perverted, butt-ugly baby.

"Mmm, is that milk for me, mommy?"

Awww, how precious.

Jiraiya's blissful dream was brutally interrupted by a stiff kick to the ribs. Shooting up with a start, he drowsily blinked through the darkness at the boy standing over his futon.

"'S better be real damn important, brat," he grumbled.

"I want you to get off your lazy ass and finish teaching me this new technique, Ero-sennin!" Naruto demanded.

Jiraiya cleared his throat loudly, turning a bleary look out the window where the sun was just starting to rise over the horizon. Then he pulled his blanket up over his head. "Come back at noon."

"Damnit Ero-sennin!" Naruto shouted, ripping the blanket off the older man and flinging it away. "I've been doing absolutely nothing but your stupid chakra control exercises for a whole month now! When are you gonna teach me the Hiraishin no Jutsu?"

"Have you mastered creating a Rasengan in each hand without assistance from a Kage Bunshin while simultaneously maintaining an Oiroke henge and standing on top of a lake without allowing the tops of your feet to get wet for at least ten minutes, all the while not allowing any of the Kyubi's chakra to seep out of you?"

"Why am I doing something so stupid in the first place? And besides, every time I start to make progress with it the flashes from your camera distract me!"

Jiraiya shrugged. Was it his fault that the wind and water swirling around 'her' poised, naked body would make a perfect cover of his next book? "Distractions happen. If you can't do something as simple as that then you'll never be able to handle Hiraishin properly," Jiraiya said firmly. He grabbed the edge of his futon and proceeded to roll himself up in it, wiggling further inside until only his hair was visible. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm in the middle of something very important with the Mizukage's sister."

"Don't go back to sleep, you idiot!" Naruto yelled, stamping his foot next to his sensei's head. "TEACH ME!"

A loud snore was the only answer he got.

Growling in frustration, the boy gave the futon another weak kick before turning and walking to the other side of the room. Kneeling down, he began rummaging through their pile of belongings, looking for something that Jiraiya might have that could help improve his rate of training. He dug to the bottom, where he came across a group of scrolls, each about a foot long. Pulling them out, Naruto noticed that only one of them really stood out from the rest: The bright yellow one on the far right with a stack of blank seal papers tied to it.

As he unrolled it and read the first line of text, his eyes lit up and he rolled it back up, stuffing it and the seals into his pocket.

"Hey Ero-sennin," he called out. "I'm just gonna take this scroll and go learn the Hiraishin on my own, okay?"

"Mhuffr. Yeah, you take it, you naughty little...mergle."

"Cool, later!"

xxx

Twenty-five minutes later...

"Jeez, this isn't that hard!" Naruto declared as he finished reading over the scroll, thinking that he must have missed something vitally important that would make this jutsu seem a bit more impossible like how Jiraiya had made it out to be.

The process seemed simple enough. Just place a special seal on yourself and another one on a designated place or object and from that point on, you could use the jutsu to transport to that exact spot in an instant so long as the seal wasn't damaged or removed in any way. It didn't even have to be placed on seal paper; he could put the marking directly on a tree, a rock, another person, pretty much anything solid. He couldn't wait to get back to Konoha so he could stick one on his personal reserved stool at Ichiraku's.

Of course, there was the large warning section at the end about the importance of having perfect chakra control before attempting the jutsu, but he barely skimmed that section, mainly because the extremely sloppy handwriting was beginning to hurt his eyes at that point. And honestly, when had poor chakra control ever been a real problem for Uzumaki Naruto? No matter what the jutsu, he'd always been able to twist his way around the difficult parts, just like he had with the rasengan. And if he couldn't find an easy way around it, then he'd just master it through trial-and-error like he'd done with Summoning and the Kage Bunshin.

Besides, it was just teleporting while a seal basically anchored you to your inevitable appearing point. What could possibly go wrong with that?

And so he pulled out a slip of seal paper, and carefully drew out the proper seal onto it, double-checking to make sure he had it right. With the completed seal in hand, the young jinchuriki rolled up the scroll, slipped it back into his pocket, slapped the seal on the ground and jogged about twenty yards away. There, he rolled up his sleeve and drew another seal just above his left wrist.

He was ready.

"All right then: Time for a well-deserved increase in my Level of Awesome."

Focusing all his thoughts on the seal before him, he gathered his chakra, closed his eyes, envisioned himself traveling through space and time to his destination, and with a loud "Ha", released the chakra.

Feeling nothing, he opened his eyes and drooped when he saw that he hadn't moved an inch. Not deterred in the slightest, he repeated the process, focusing harder and gathering more chakra before releasing it. He opened his eyes, and again met with the same result.

Growling his frustration, he clenched his eyes tightly, clasped his hands in front of his chest, and gathered as much chakra as he could; which, considering it was Naruto, was a hell of a lot.

With his eyes shut, the only thing that told him something had happened was a strange pulling sensation in his stomach not unlike the feeling one got from a sudden fall. The whole experience only lasted a fraction of a second. Naruto grinned a wide, triumphant grin and opened his eyes.

"Yes! Take that, Ero-sennin! I did it all by myself, and on only my third try! I'm so amazing I just can't even- where the hell am I?"

xxx

xxx

Hiraishin: Accidental World Tour

A Naruto fanfic

By Legendary Legacy

Standard Disclaimer: These characters and settings belong to Masashi Kishimoto. I'm just borrowing them in the attempt at making them a little bit better than the hollow, pathetic shells that canon has made them out to be. Please enjoy.

xxx

xxx

One second you're standing in the woods less than half a mile outside a small town in the northern region of the Fire Country, a good fifty miles from any major body of water, and the next second you find yourself on a rocky beach overlooking the ocean.

"What the freakin' hell just happened!"

All things considered, Naruto was handling it quite well.

"What was all that crap about only reappearing where the seal was placed?" he demanded as he furiously read through the scroll again.

"God, writing important scrolls in such crappy handwriting should be illegal," he muttered as he returned to the warning section. "Okay...'While the Hiraishin no Jutsu is a very useful technique, it is also very delicate and requires absolute control over your own chakra. Using anything less than perfect chakra control can result in various problems; the most likely of which is accidentally missing the intended target location. In this case, the user is likely to appear completely at random at a previously placed seal in another location. In order to avoid these situations, it is advisable that novices of this jutsu not create more than two or three seals until their control increases'?

"...Well this still doesn't explain why I ended up out here!" he grumbled, gazing around at the waves crashing against the rocky shore where he stood. "I only made the one seal back in the forest, so unless there were..."

A quick Kage Bunshin later, the group of Narutos began combing over the beach. It didn't take long before one of them made a discovery buried under the rocks only a couple feet away from where the original Naruto had appeared. The clone held up a small pointed object for the others to see. Upon closer inspection, they realized that it was a very old and rusty three-pronged kunai. Beneath the coat of rust, a Hiraishin seal could barely be made out. Having been informed by Jiraiya back when he started him on his chakra training of how the Yondaime had utilized these kunai in battle, Naruto understood what had happened.

"So... I guess this means that any seal that the Yondaime didn't get rid of before he died is still open to me now, huh?"

Dispelling his clones, he stared in contemplation at the rusty kunai, briefly wondering what sort of battle must have taken place here that it was used in. He continued to mull his new situation over in his mind for several more seconds before tucking the relic into his leg holster.

"Oh well, Trial and Error it is then. After all, how many seals could the Yondaime have possible left lying around? I'll be back before Ero-sennin even realizes I'm gone."

That matter settled, he re-gathered his chakra, focusing intently on the image of the forest he had just been in, and vanished.

xxx

Up with the sun, bathe, eat breakfast, intensive training, bathe again (being covered in sweat and sand made for an uncomfortable day), assist brother with official village duties, help train rookies, bathe again (Very uncomfortable day) make dinner, bathe again if necessary, go to bed.

Such was the new daily routine of one Sabaku no Temari. A routine that had started almost immediately following her brother Gaara's rise to Kazekage and her own promotion to Jounin. Being a jounin should have made things more exciting, she had thought. But that was before the council commanded her through great amounts of begging and pleading to stay within the village until they made certain that Gaara didn't miss being insane and wouldn't be suffering any relapses while his siblings were away.

To make up for her lack of missions, Gaara had put her and Kankuro in charge of training several of the up and coming genin, which was great because she just loved standing around listening to Kankuro bitch and complain about having to put up with 'snot-nosed little morons who probably would never amount to anything beyond fodder anyway'.

Temari would have argued that notion had one boy not chosen that exact moment to accidentally stab himself with his own kunai.

And so here she found herself, soaking in the extra large bathtub that had previously belonged exclusively to her parents, musing on the sad and tedious existence she was currently living.

"My life is boring," she summed up to herself, sinking further into the steamy water until it reached the tip of her chin. "Why can't something exciting or unexpected happen once in a while?"

Someone was suddenly on top of her. There was no puff of smoke, no swirling of sand or leaves or anything else that would create proper dramatics for the appearance. He was just not there, and then he was there.

Fortunately, despite the size of the tub, it wasn't that deep, so she was able to keep her head above water even as the full weight of the somewhat familiar boy pressed down on her. The two blondes stared at one another in unmoving shock, doing little more than blinking for what felt like an hour.

Naruto decided to break the ice. "Uh, you're Gaara's sister, right?"

"Yeah," Temari confirmed. "And you're that kid who beat him at the chunin exams."

"Yeah."

There was a long pause.

"Where did you just come from?"

"Er, some beach...somewhere."

"Oh."

"Y-yeah."

Another silent pause.

"How exactly did you...you know...?"

"Oh. I'm trying to learn a new jutsu. I haven't really gotten the hang of it yet."

"I see."

"Yeah. Incidentally," he added, fishing the rusty kunai out of his pocket and holding it up for her to see. "If you happen to find a seal that looks like this one somewhere in this room, you should probably get rid of it."

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind," Temari said as she took the kunai while Naruto replaced his hand to the spot that it had been before.

"Okay. Good."

Once again they both fell silent. The multiple bouts of silence weren't nearly as nerve-wracking to Naruto as the overall casualness of the whole situation was.

"...Um?"

"What?"

"Well not that I'm complaining or anything, but whenever Ero-sennin ends up in a situation like this, the lady usually goes ape-shit and beats the hell out of him. And... I notice you're not. Even though I'm currently on top of you while you're naked and wet."

He glanced down at his hands. "Also, I appear to have been fondling you this entire time. And if I know anything about women and perverted interaction, you should be punching me as hard as you can right now while ignoring my pleas that it's all a crazy misunderstanding."

Temari just shrugged. "Yeah well, I would... but I suppose it's my fault anyway. I think I brought this upon myself by tempting fate and asking for more excitement in my life."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." She looked down at Naruto's hands. "And to be perfectly honest, you're doing a pretty good job of exciting me right now."

That comment was finally a bit too much for Naruto, who slowly removed his hands from her chest and stumbled his way out of the bathtub. "So, I should probably be on my way now."

Temari felt like saying something to the effect of 'finishing what you started', but then decided against it. "Probably. The shock is starting to wear off and there's a good chance I'll change my mind about hitting you when it does."

He didn't need any more incentive than that. "Well I'm outta here then. Say hi to Gaara for me." He thought about that for a second. "On second thought, don't. The less he knows about this incident the safer I'll feel. Bye!" And with that, he was gone.

Temari leaned back into the tub again, staring at the ceiling. Not the sort of unexpected surprise she had been hoping for, but at least it had been enough to break up her normal everyday routine for a little while. As she got out and reached for her towel she remembered the kunai that Naruto had left behind.

Examining it carefully, she found that she recognized it from a tale that one of the village elders had told her and her siblings several years back about how Konoha's Yellow Flash had used these particular kunai to win many decisive battles against Iwagakure in the last Great Ninja War. She briefly wondered what Naruto had done to warrant getting to learn the signature technique of the former Hokage.

"More importantly," she added with a frown. "Why would the Hokage have put one of his seals in my parent's bathhouse?"


	2. Chapter 2

Jiraiya woke up about an hour after his first interrupted dream sequence with a strange sensation: That someone he knew was getting unreasonably lucky while he himself was not. When he realized that both Naruto and the Hiraishin scroll were gone, he grew irritated. When he reached the spot that Naruto typically went to train and found nothing more than a solitary seal lying on the ground and no sign of the boy, he grew considerably more irritated.

After a mad dash through the city in hopes that Naruto had just gotten hungry and gone looking for ramen yielded no positive results, irritation went right out the window.

"I'm going to kill him."

He knew that the brat was impatient and so hard-headed you could break walnuts on his skull; and quite honestly he was shocked that the brat had lasted this long without pulling a stunt like this. But damn it all, he had thought that the stupid boy would have at LEAST read the warnings in the scroll and taken it seriously before attempting the damn jutsu! And of course the brat would have the dumb luck of pulling it off as quickly as he apparently had.

He dropped his pack on the ground and began digging furiously through it until he found a small notebook buried among his research papers. Giving silent thanks to Minato for at least having the courtesy of documenting all of the known places that he'd left seals for future reference, he quickly scanned through the pages.

Maybe things weren't as bad as they seemed. He knew Minato had used the Hiraishin a lot during the war, but surely he hadn't just continued to spam seals all over the place without a second thought to future ramifications, right?

"Son of a bitch!"

Four hundred and eighty-six. Four hundred and eighty-six documented seal locations?

"I'd kill you if you weren't already dead!" he screamed to the sky. He looked back at the book. He had never before realized just how utterly lazy the bastard must have been. "Honestly, a seal in every room of your house? Did you actually walk anywhere?"

To make matters worse, only fifty-five of the seals were located inside the Fire Country borders. Of those fifty-five, only thirty-seven were in or within a couple miles of Konoha.

Jiraiya felt like crying. Almost five hundred different locations, and right now Naruto could be at any one of them. And with his atrocious chakra control and sheer stubbornness to give up until he had a technique mastered, he could end up bouncing around from every corner of the Elemental Continent for months before he was found or ended up back home! That was assuming, of course, that he didn't land himself in enemy territory...

And it wasn't until he read through the list one more time that something occurred to Jiraiya: Konoha had WAY too many potential enemies.

Kumo, Iwa, Oto, Kiri, and that wasn't even counting Akatsuki and Orochimaru, and who knew which country they were currently holed up in. Of course, knowing Naruto's luck, he'd find them both before the week was up.

"Tsunade is going to kill me!" he cried, burying his face in his hands. She had told him before they even left that Naruto wasn't ready for Hiraishin, and if she found out he'd gone ahead and done it and then screwed up this bad she'd do worse things to him than she did the time she found out he'd used her as a character in his third Icha Icha book.

He had to think of something. Unfortunately, in a situation like this there was only one thing he could think to do now.

He would just have to track down every last one of those damn seals in the book and destroy them, thereby reducing the number of places that Naruto could warp to until there were none left, then he would do terrible, horrible things to him for putting him through so much trouble.

He read over the notebook again, trying to decide where the best place to start would be. He'd leave the seals in and around Konoha for last, that way the brat could still have a chance to make it back to safety, but that still left over four hundred other seals to destroy, not counting any that were undocumented.

He really wished he knew Hiraishin right about now.

xxx

Nanoseconds after leaving Temari's bathroom, Naruto found himself sitting on a barstool, staring out toward the business district of an unfamiliar village.

"No naked women," he commented as he stood up and continued his inspection of the surroundings. "That's an improvement at least. But where am I?"

Further inquiries were stopped by a frightened gasp from behind him. He turned around to see a very pale-faced elderly man staring at him from inside a small restaurant stand. "Y-y-you! You're...b-but you can't be-!"

Naruto gave the man a look of concern. "You feeling okay, oji-san?"

Slowly, the old man moved around the counter in order to get a closer look at him. After a long, scrutinizing looking over, he breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. I thought I was seeing ghosts there for a minute."

"...Right, so could you tell me which village-"

"But ya know," the man broke in, moving his face directly in front of Naruto's. "If it weren't for those funny marks on your face, you'd never be able to tell the two o' you apart." Then he snapped his fingers. "Ah-ha! You must be his kid, ain't you?"

Naruto sighed in defeat. "Okay fine, I'll bite. Who's kid?"

"Why Minato-kun's, of course!" he answered as though it were the dumbest question ever asked. "It's so obvious! You've got the same eyes, the same hair, the same stupid expression on your face when you're confused or thinking too hard."

"Hey!"

"Not to mention the way you just appeared out of nowhere the same way he always did. Don't think I could ever forget that; damn near gave me a heart attack every time." The man's eyes suddenly took on a vacant look. "Ah, but what a fine lad. Best customer I ever had, for certain. Practically ate me out of business every time he showed up. I had to start doubling my ingredient shipments because of him." He let out a melancholic chuckle. "Day I heard he'd died protecting his village from some monster...saddest day since the passin' of my own wife."

Naruto had to admit, he was growing very intrigued. He moved around the old man to sit down on the wooden stool he'd appeared on before. "So oji-san-"

"Call me Hiroshi, boy."

"Hiroshi-ojisan, you're talking about the Yondaime Hokage, right?"

"That's right!"

"His name was Minato?"

"Of course it was. Namikaze Minato. Name's carved right into that seat you're in."

Naruto shifted his weight to the side. Sure enough, there was a badly engraved message beneath him that read "Lifetime reservation for Namikaze Minato. Violators might be killed". Underneath it was another Hiraishin seal.

"How could you not possibly know you're own dad's name, boy?" Hiroshi demanded.

"Honestly, I didn't think he even had a name. Everyone in Konoha just called him Yondaime. And he's not my dad either; my family name is Uzumaki, not Namikaze." That, of course, wasn't even the biggest of reasons for why the man was wrong in his assumption, but it was the easiest to point out.

Hiroshi shrugged it off. "Maybe they left you with you're mom's name? Or maybe you were a bastard child or something."

"Did you know my mom?" Naruto asked, sounding slightly hopefully.

"Might of," he replied, suddenly looking a bit envious. "But then it seemed like almost every time he showed up here he'd be in the company of a different woman or women. Boy was a right big playboy back in his heydays."

Somehow, this didn't surprise Naruto nearly as much as he felt it should have.

Hiroshi kept talking, though at this point he seemed to be speaking more to himself than to Naruto if the faraway look in his eyes meant anything. "I do recall him telling me about wanting to get married to some girl about a few months before he died, but I don't think I ever met the girl he was talking about."

Naruto decided he was ready for a different topic. Not that he wasn't interested in hearing more about the Yondaime's antics, but he'd have felt more comfortable hearing about them from Jiraiya or Tsunade or Kakashi. "So Minato came here a lot?"

"Oh, had to be at least every other day. A real connoisseur, he was. Always said that my stuff was the best, though," he added proudly. "What do ya say I whip some up for ya? I'll even give ya the same discount I gave your dad."

Having skipped breakfast in the excitement of learning his new jutsu, Naruto only now realized how hungry he had gotten. And the thought of a discount meal made him completely overlook correcting the old man on the dad issue again. "Sure!"

"Great!" Hiroshi said, feeling happier than he had in years. He ducked down behind the counter to fetch the ingredients. "What's your fancy?"

"I'll take three bowls of miso, two each of pork and chicken, and one vegetable!"

Hiroshi's head popped back into view, his eyebrow quirked in confusion. "What are ya saying, boy?"

"I said I wanted three bowls of miso ramen, two bowls of pork ramen and chicken ramen, and-"

"What kinda place you think you are, boy?" the old man demanded. "Ain't no ramen here."

Naruto nearly choked, as he usually did whenever he heard the words 'no ramen'. "But then…?" He jumped out of the seat and moved outside of the stand, looking at the name of the place. Slowly, his gaze fell back on the old man. "The Yondaime ate…yakitori?" he asked in a sickened tone.

"Of course, why wouldn't he of?"

"He didn't eat ramen?" Naruto asked, still in awe. "I always thought the Yondaime had better taste than that."

"What kind of person with any sense would choose ramen over yakitori?" Hiroshi demanded, sounding highly offended. "You call yourself Minato-kun's son?"

"Hell no, I don't! Because no dad of mine would eat some crappy yakitori when he could be having sweet, succulent ramen instead!"

"And no son of Minato's would pass up my heavenly yakitori for some nasty, soggy noodles!"

"Yakitori sucks!"

And just like that, the beginning of the bond that had started to form between the two was severed.

Hiroshi reached for his butcher knife. "Say that again," he dared him through clenched teeth.

Naruto leaned over the counter until they were face to face. "Yakitori. Sucks!"

"…"

"You wanna die, brat?" Hiroshi seethed.

"Bring it, you old fart!"

In the ensuing melee, Naruto found that for a sixty-year-old man with little to no combat training whatsoever, Hiroshi could put up one hell of a fight when properly motivated.

It wasn't until the authorities began pushing their way through the gathered crowd that Naruto decided it was probably time to high-tail it.

And so Naruto Hiraishined away, with nothing gained from this trip but some unappealing information about the Yondaime and a frying pan-induced welt on his head. For his part, a badly winded Hiroshi set to work on removing Minato's seal from his seat while sporting a shiner over his left eye.

Minato's son or not, he'd be damned if he had that blasphemy-spewing noodle-sucker popping up in his shop again any time soon.

xxx

Elsewhere...

The plant-hybrid man known as Zetsu was currently highly irritated.

Though, at the same time he was also highly amused.

Having dueling personalities could lead to some seriously confusing problems like that.

"Please?"

As it were, no matter what feelings the two halves of Zetsu were currently feeling, they were all the cause of the boy in the swirly orange mask who was grasping him by the cuffs of his cloak.

**"No,"** the black Zetsu responded firmly.

"Pretty please?" Tobi pleaded harder.

**"No!"**

"Pretty please with sugar and ice-cream and chocolate sprinkles and two cherries with a side of-"

**"GO AWAY!"** he shouted, finally losing the last of his calm.

"Calm down," White Zetsu reprimanded himself. "Tobi, get off of my desk."

The boy did as he was told, scooting off the cluttered desk to sit in the chair across from him. "Why won't you let me join Akatsuki?" he whimpered.

**"Because you're an irritating little pri-"**

Zetsu cut himself off. "Because there aren't any open positions we need filled at this time."

**"Not that we'd hire you even if we did."**

"Oh shut up! So he's a little...a lot more cheerful than the others. At least he could help lighten the mood now and then."

**"Because an evil organization bent on world domination is in SUCH big need of comic relief, right?"**

"I don't see the problem with it. Besides, how many times in the past have we actually had someone volunteer to join us? Usually we have to use force or bribery or blackmail or some other form of persuasion."

**"Just because he's willing doesn't mean he's worth it! Besides-"**

Zetsu's argument with himself ended abruptly by a light chuckle from Tobi. "You're funny, Zetsu-san. Sometimes Tobi has to argue with himself too, whenever the bad guy inside him tries to get out. Isn't it cool that we have stuff in common like that? I'll bet you and me could be the best of friends!"

Black Zetsu really wanted to hit his head on the desk, but White Zetsu held him back. "Look Tobi; you seem like a real good kid, and God only knows why you would want to join up with a group like ours. But if you're really set on it, I suppose I can at least put you on our reserve list as a grunt."

"REALLY! Tobi can be an Akatsuki Grunt?"

Zetsu shrugged. "Well, we did lose four newcomers last week when they got caught up in that art debate between Deidara and Sasori, so we're slightly short on fodder at the moment. But if you survive long enough until one of the higher-ups get killed, I'll talk to the Boss about letting you can take his place."

"So Tobi has to wait for someone to get killed?"

"That's right."

"What if I killed one of them?" Tobi asked.

Zetsu suddenly felt a very small flicker of evil intent coming from the previously happy-go-lucky boy, causing him to blink in surprise. "I uh...wouldn't recommend that."

Tobi drooped, and the dark aura vanished as fast as it had appeared. Zetsu had to wonder if it had all been in his imagination.

"Darn." Tobi muttered sadly, but quickly brightened again. "No sweat! I'll just work as hard as I have to!"

Black Zetsu was still grumbling about being overruled by his other half. **"You'd better. As a new grunt of our organization it's your job to run all the errands, clean up all the messes, go on the suicide missions, and most importantly of all: If one of the guys comes home in a bad mood it's your obligation to be his punching bag until he cools down."**

"I can do that! Tobi is very tough!" he insisted, performing a few muscle-poses before accidentally banging his knee on the side of Zetsu's desk. "Owie!"

Both Zetsu's sighed as Tobi hopped around the room holding his leg.

**"Just give me one good reason why I shouldn't eat him,"** Black Zetsu demanded of his more optimistic half.

"I imagine the indigestion would be terrible," White Zetsu muttered back. "Besides, he's kinda funny."

Black Zetsu simply rolled his eye.

"Okay!" Tobi shouted, suddenly over his pain. "What's my first official duty, Zetsu-san?"

**"Why don't you go jump off a cli-"**

"Shut up, you!" White Zetsu reached into his top drawer and pulled out a small scroll, tossing it to the masked boy. "Go into the village north of here and pick up the supplies on that list. Tell the clerks you're with Akatsuki and they should lower their prices considerably."

"Yes Sir!" Tobi shouted as he charged out the door, determined to fulfill his duty to perfection.

Zetsu just shook his head in mixed relief and amusement as the door closed. Without another spoken word, he began processing through the stack of paperwork that Pein had left on his desk.

"Um..."

Zetsu looked back up, seeing Tobi crouched down on the other side of the desk, hands and chin propped up on the edge like a dog begging its owner for scraps.

"What now?" White Zetsu asked.

"What if the clerks don't believe me when I tell them I'm with Akatsuki?"

"Then tell them that Zetsu sent you," he answered calmly, having the growing feeling that there was something that Tobi wanted but didn't want to come out and ask for it.

"What if they still don't believe me?"

White Zetsu was beginning to lose his patience. "Then come back and tell me and I'll go eat them for you."

Tobi visibly drooped. "Oh...okay. ...Oooor," he added, failing to sound as nonchalant as he'd hoped. "You could avoid all that trouble and... let me have an Akatsuki cloak?"

**"Oh, for the love of-"**

"If I give you one will you promise not to bother me for the rest of the day?"

Tobi nodded vigorously.

"Fine." He gestured behind him. "There're a few extras in the closet."

As Tobi flung open the closet door, a gleam appeared in the eyehole of his mask.

"BANZAI!"

Several long moments of rummaging, rattling, grunting, and things breaking followed as Zetsu returned to his paperwork.

**"You know those are only supposed to be for the Inner Circle members."**

"Who cares? It gets him off our backs and it makes him happy."

Black Zetsu grumbled indignantly about the rest of the fodder and special treatment complaints.

Tobi emerged wearing his new cloak; twirling in place with his arms spread wide.

"This is the best day of my life!" he gushed, stopping in front of a mirror to admire himself. "Look how awesome I look in-" He trailed off as something unexpected came to his attention. He turned back to Zetsu.

"Do you have one with orange clouds? This red one clashes with Tobi's mask."

Seconds later, Tobi fled the room under a hail of many thrown office supplies.

xxx

"Why the Hell would he put a seal way up here?"

Those were Naruto's first thoughts upon reappearing in this new location. Looking around, he found himself standing atop a high stone cliff that circled around the edges of a deep valley, within which was a very large village. Everything around him looked rocky and dry with practically no foliage to speak of.

Noticing that he was standing in a shadow, he turned to his left and saw a large statue of a man carved from a dark colored stone next to him. Three similar statues stood at compass points on the other three sides of the valley wall, all of them facing inward as though they were keeping watch over the village at all time.

The significance of it was basically lost on Naruto, since he was more interested in figuring out just how far away from Konoha he now was. So he leapt on top of the statue, balancing easily on its head, and squinted down at the village below, barely able to make out the people that were walking the streets below him.

If he had to take a guess, he might have thought that this was Iwagakure or another village inside the Earth Country. His mind was telling him that there was something very important about that, but for the life of him he just couldn't put his finger on what it was.

xxx

Down on the busy streets of Iwagakure, people went about their daily lives as usual. None of the civilians had any thoughts or cares to any potential danger that might befall them, knowing that their village's mighty forces had kept them all safe for over a decade now. Sure, the war had been incredibly hard on them all, but even though they had receded from it in the end (though some stubborn veterans would swear it had been a draw) their village had regained its original prestige very well in their opinions.

And so they continued to live in complacency, believing today to be just another average day in Iwa. That is, until one of those middle-aged stubborn war veterans happened to look up at the statue of the Yondaime Tsuchikage above the village gate, and froze when he saw someone standing on it. He quickly looked away and frantically rubbed at his eyes, silently assuring himself that what he thought he saw was just an illusion brought on by bad memories from long ago.

He looked back, and realized he was wrong. Oh God was he wrong. He may not have been able to completely make him out, but seeing that shock of blond hair was enough for him. HE stood there, on the head of their Tsuchikage just like he always used to do all those years ago, carrying the threat of total destruction and massacre right along with him.

The jounin tried without much success to stop his trembling, knowing full well that as a high-ranking shinobi he had to remain professional and in control. The fate of his village could hang in the balance of what he did next. So he took a deep breath...

...And screamed as loud as he possibly could.

"YELLOW FLASH!" He then beat feet in the other direction before anyone had the chance to question him.

Slowly, as his words began making themselves clear to the others, the dozens of frozen villagers turned instinctively as one toward the Yondaime's statue.

And then... pandemonium.


	3. Chapter 3

Naruto blinked in surprise as the crowded streets literally began stampeding over one another in a screaming frenzy. "What's got them so worked up all of a sudden? Is this some kind of drill or something?"

He was high up enough that he couldn't really make out what the people were screaming about, nor did he notice the many of them that were pointing at him in horror. He only knew one thing for certain: he wasn't going to learn anything helpful from up here. But even so, did he dare to enter this potentially dangerous village?

...Eh, why not? If anything threatening happened he'd just Hiraishin away again before it got out of hand. Besides, he was still hungry, and maybe this place would have ramen.

His mind made up, he dropped from the wall, into the village of Iwa.

xxx

"OH MY GOD HE'S COMING TOWARD US!"

"Get all the civilians into the underground shelters! All shinobi not in ANBU follow the civilians! All shinobi in ANBU, stay here and sacrifice yourselves as it becomes necessary!"

Several masked men groaned.

"And someone warn the Tsuchikage! Move people, MOVE!"

xxx

When Naruto reached the inner walls of the village, the streets were deserted. A light breeze picked up, causing an open shop door to swing lazily back and forth with a rusty creak. A tumbleweed blew across the street in front of him. If he hadn't just seen it packed with people two minutes previous, Naruto would have sworn it was a ghost town.

As he wandered around, hoping to find someone to speak with, two ANBU poked their heads out from around the building behind him.

"Is it really him?" the one with the bird mask whispered to his partner.

"'Course it's him! Who else could it be?" Cat mask demanded. "Only one person just shows up out of nowhere like he does."

"Well yeah, but...he hasn't done this sort of thing in years, ya know?" Bird mask said. "And what about that whole 'him dying trying to kill a biju' thing?"

Cat mask didn't respond to that. When the rumors first came in fourteen years ago that The Yellow Flash had died, the village council had declared a national holiday. There hadn't been anyone sober enough to take on even a D-rank mission for the next week.

The Tsuchikage, for his part, had tried warning everyone that it had all been a ruse, that Konoha was spreading the rumors themselves to test the loyalty of Iwa after the war treaties had been signed. No one took him seriously, however, due to the fact that the Tsuchikage had always been too paranoid and pessimistic for his own good.

Now though, it looked like he might have been right after all. Both ANBU had seen The Yellow Flash's picture hundreds of times on the bounty posters that hung all over Iwa even to this day. And despite the fact that the person walking around before them didn't have any visible devil's horns, blood-dripping fangs or razor-sharp claws like the pictures depicted, he did seem like a pretty accurate match.

"So what do we do?" Bird Mask asked.

Cat mask couldn't help shuddering. "We're gonna have to try and stop him before he finds his way to the shelters."

"I knew you were going to say that," Bird mask sighed dejectedly. "How exactly are we going to do that?"

"Well...I think the best thing to do would be to have you go out there and distract him while I sneak around and surprise him from behind."

"Oh you go to Hell!" Bird Mask shouted. "Why don't you go out there and distract him?"

"Because I'm older than you! Seniority rules!"

"But I've been in ANBU longer than you have! If anyone has seniority here-!"

"Excuse me."

Both men froze, and turned with deliberate slowness in the direction of the voice. Standing before them was The Yellow Flash himself, appearing out of nowhere just like all the war reports said.

Sadly, neither had noticed that rather than actually appearing there, Naruto had simply heard the two arguing and walked over to them while they weren't looking.

Naruto raised his hand in a friendly gesture. "Hi. Can one of you-?"

Whatever he had hoped to ask went unheard as both men chose that moment to pass out.

Naruto shook his head. What the heck was wrong with this village? People running around like they were in the midst of a biju attack, shinobi passing out for no reason...

Looking around, Naruto failed to find any other people, and wandering the village aimlessly probably wouldn't do any good either.

"Well, this was a waste of time. Damn, here I thought Hiraishin would be the coolest jutsu ever, and I can't even find a decent ramen shop with it."

Well, there was nothing else to do but try his luck again. Maybe he'd end up back at the training site. Jiraiya was bound to have noticed his absence by now, anyway. He didn't want to get yelled at any more than he had to.

As he gathered his chakra, he didn't even sense the presence of someone inching their way toward him from behind.

"M-Minato-kun?"

Naruto heard the voice, but the surprise of it caused him to release his chakra, and when he looked back, he found himself no longer in the rocky village, but standing on a crowded beachside.

"Shoot," he muttered ruefully. "Hope that wasn't someone important. Whoever it was knew Minato..."

xxx

Staring at the empty space that Naruto had just been standing, the masked woman drooped at her missed opportunity. She had been on the far side of the village when the screaming and evacuating had begun, and though she had run faster than she could remember running in years, she had just missed him.

But through her disappointment, an old glimmer of happiness beaconed.

"I had given up hope, do you know that, Minato-kun?" she whispered as she lifted the prone bodies of her fallen ANBU members. "And now, here you are again, after all this time."

She let out a humorless chuckle as she stared up at the Yondaime's statue. "Father is never going to get over this."

xxx

Naruto shook his head. "Oh well, to late to worry about it now, I guess. Now, where am I?"

He turned back and swept his gaze across the beach. He immediately grew pale.

"And why am I the only one here wearing any clothes?"

xxx

The Yondaime Tsuchikage paced his office, barely listening as the three ANBU gave their reports.

"And that's how it went, Tsuchikage-sama," Cat Mask explained, trying with no great success to keep the fear out of his voice.

"We uh...we tried our best to hold him off, sir," Bird Mask continued. "He was just too much for us. He beat us effortlessly."

"That's right," his partner added. "It's actually pretty amazing that we made it out alive."

"And with no visible injuries," the woman next to them muttered, causing them both to tense.

Luckily for them, the Tsuchikage didn't seem to have heard, being so lost in thought. After several painfully silent seconds, he turned his attention to the woman. "Kaira, you've met the Yellow Flash in person before, can you say with absolute certainty that it was him?"

The woman shook her head. "Unfortunately, Tsuchikage-sama, he disappeared before I could get a look at his face. Although I know that the hair was the same, and he used the Hiraishin no Jutsu, of that I can be certain."

The Tsuchikage sighed, collapsing heavily into his chair and placed his head in his hands. He'd been waiting for this day every day for the last fifteen-odd years. The pleasure of knowing that he alone had been right all along was only outweighed by the even greater pleasure of getting to see the looks on the faces of those dusty old fogies that called themselves a village council. Senile, they had called him. Ha! Senile like a fox, perhaps!

Of course, the fact that his most hated of enemies was still alive and well after all this time did a fine job of dampening his mood.

_And you, you bastard Minato,_ he mused. _Thinking that you could pull a fast one on me and my village. Pretending to be dead for all these years, never giving even the slightest notion to what you were really planning, just waiting for me to slip up. Well guess what? I just beat you at your own game, you whelp. You just couldn't keep yourself away, couldn't stand going so long without antagonizing me. Well now you have nothing to hide behind. I agreed to keep my men away from Konoha so long as you did the same, but don't think for even a second that I'll allow you to get away with simply waltzing into my village as though you owned the place-_

"Tsuchikage-sama?"

The middle-aged man blinked out of his mental rant. "What was that, Kaira?"

"I said, before he vanished I swore I heard him mention something about finding a ramen shop."

The Tsuchikage blinked. "Ramen shop?"

She shrugged. "That's what it sounded like to me."

Odd, that.

"Sir," Cat Mask spoke up. "Is it at all possible that one of our men happened upon The Yellow Flash at some point and attacked him, thereby provoking this sudden appearance from him?"

The Yondaime hummed, having not thought of that possibility. It was true that before Minato's 'death' he had issued several assassination attempts on him, and it was always after one of those attempts had failed that Minato would appear atop his statue. 'Look here', he seemed to say, 'You've failed to kill me yet again. Now here I stand before you and what are you going to do about it?'

Goddamnit, how he hated that cocky bastard!

"I think that's a question for the interrogators to be asking," he said after a brief pause. "I want them in my office in thirty minutes or less. After that, you're to round up the rest of the ANBU divisions. Tell them I want positions taken up at all corners of the village at all times. If the Yellow Flash appears again, you are all to attack with extreme prejudice."

"Ye-yes Sir," the masked men replied, hoping against all hope that neither of them ever saw the Yellow Flash now or ever.

"And Kaira," he continued, turning his full attention to the woman. "I want the members of the council notified at once. If they give you any grief over it, tell them it's a Triple S situation."

Kaira bowed her head. "Understood, father."

As the three ANBU turned for the door, an afterthought came to him. "And send out an official edict: From this day forward, ramen is banned from Iwagakure."

"Does this mean we can finally reopen all of our yakitori stands, Sir?" Cat Mask asked hopefully.

"Absolutely not! That's exactly what he wants us to do! Come around pretending to want ramen so we'll bring back his precious yakitori. I'm not falling for that!"

The group of ANBU hid their disappointment behind their masks. Their village was slowly running out of places to eat at. If the Yellow Flash ever came back with a hankering for sushi or okonomiyaki, the village might just starve to death.

xxx

Jiraiya chewed thoughtfully on the end of his pen, staring down at the notebook of Hiraishin seal locations. He'd made a little bit of progress in the last couple of hours, but not nearly enough. He'd managed to find and destroy several seals within the Land of Rice Fields, but there were still at least eighteen more to go before he could move on to the next country.

He really wished he had an updated version of the list. Hell, back when Minato had compiled the damn list Otogakure hadn't even existed, which was causing Jiraiya no end of troubles in trying to reevaluate the land around him in comparison to what they must have been like a decade and a half ago.

In his gut, he felt he'd made the right decision of taking care of Rice Fields first. Sure, the chances of Orochimaru still being here were slim at best, and things would definitely be a lot worse off should Naruto end up in a place like Iwa, but as it stood, Rice Fields had been the closest country to his starting location. And even more fortunate, there were only four documented seal locations in Earth Country, with two being in Iwagakure, so the chances of Naruto ending up there any time soon were almost nonexistent.

Lightning and Water might be a problem, on the other hand. Lightning Country and Kumogakure totaled up to forty seals, while the dozens of islands that made up the Water Country had a whopping eighty-two! But, to be fair, a lot of those had been his own fault.

A melancholic smile appeared on his face as he stared at the twenty-five seals on the list for Water Country that had question marks beside them rather than actual locations. Not long after Minato had perfected his ultimate technique, Jiraiya had swiped a stack of his pre-made paper seals and placed loads of them in places of...personal interest to himself, hoping to enjoy them at his own leisure at a later date. That unfortunately had been before he'd realized a few years later that he just didn't have the knack for using Hiraishin no Jutsu like Minato did, even with lots of coaching from the brat.

Even knowing that, he'd then taken twenty-five more seals and made his way to the Water Country.

The first seal he'd placed in front of the most luxurious resort hotel on the entire continent. Located in what the locals referred to as The Sea of Rainbow Waters on one of the larger islands on the northwestern coast of the main Water Island, so named for the gigantic coral reef that surrounded the entire north, east and south sides of the island which, when viewed at sunrise cast a vibrant, multi-colored sheen over the surface of the water. He hadn't stuck around to see it for himself, but it was supposed to be a truly breathtaking sight. The perfect location for a honeymoon.

Sadly, thanks to the Kyubi's attack combined with Minato and Kushina's own procrastinations on finalizing the matter, it was never to be.

"Huh, wonder if that old reservation I made for them is still good?" he muttered thoughtfully. "For the kind of money they made me shell out in advance, it ought to be."

He'd have to leave that seal in place. Even if it never got used, it was a symbol of one of the more generous acts he'd ever done (or tried to do) for his old student. Nobody would probably believe him otherwise.

"And speaking of generous," he added with a smirk.

Those other twenty-four seals he'd taken...well, those had been a gift for Jiraiya as much as for Minato. They were for the bachelor party.

Twenty-four seals on twenty-four incredibly tiny little islands clustered around the south-eastern side of the Water Country mainland. Despite their small sizes, each one offered something unique, whether it be the various beaches, local landmarks, themed restaurants with every type of food imaginable, nightclubs and bars; they all amounted to a little slice of paradise.

And of course, one couldn't possibly overlook the lax rules that some of the islands took regarding clothing, which the hundreds of beauties (and not-so-beauties) took great liberties with. Jiraiya giggled at the memory.

But what really made the place interesting was the unofficial contest that it brought out in people.

It was a well-known fact that no one had ever managed to visit more than eighteen islands in one day because of the boat schedules, and trying to swim between them would be too tiring even for the biggest of stamina freaks. But with Hiraishin, they would have been able to visit all twenty-four in a single day with enough time to actually enjoy each one as they went. It was the one thing left in life that Jiraiya absolutely had to accomplish before dying. Well, that and getting a decent peak at Tsunade in the buff.

Hmm, maybe he could even kill two birds with one stone if he played it right...

The sennin shook his head. "Dreams and reminiscing can wait." There was still a lot of work to be done.

He'd just save the seals in Water for later, as they would definitely require the largest amount of time to find. And maybe he'd just leave those twenty-five seals where they were. Who knew: maybe if some poor girl ever took enough pity on Naruto to want to marry him then he could take the brat with him on the Grand Island Trek; Just another reason to make sure that he found the boy alive and in good health.

"Okay, the next seal is..."


	4. Chapter 4

Another nude beach.

"This is the thirteenth one in a row! Am I just going in circles now, or what?"

Naruto stomped down the white, sandy beach, fuming as he went. It wasn't that he was really upset with where he was, (the view was quite nice, after all) it was just that he wasn't, and couldn't seem to get to, where he really wanted to be. There was no way that Jiraiya wouldn't have noticed what happened by now, and that would mean a sever tongue-lashing when he finally got back to him. Heck, he couldn't even get lucky enough to end up in Konoha, and surely Minato had left plenty of seals there, right?

"Stupid Hiraishin," he muttered, kicking at the sand as he went. "Stupid Minato and all his stupid seals all over the stupid place." He glanced banefully around at all the chilled-noodle shops that lined the boardwalk on his left side. "Stupid ramen wannabe's. Stupid-"

*Thump*

"-cleavage?"

Turning his head forward ever-so-slowly, he found that he had indeed walked smack dab into the middle of a set of breasts. But not just any set, no sir; this had to have been the second biggest set of breasts he'd ever seen, and they could probably give Tsunade's a good run for their money.

His mind briefly noted that this was the second time in about as many hours that he'd come into physical contact with a woman's naked chest, and he wondered what the odds were of him managing to escape again without injury. Realistically, it didn't look too good for him.

"Like 'em?" the woman giggled.

But hell, he'd been wrong before.

He let his eyes trail upward to see who it was that he'd groped this time. Whoever she was, she was tall, probably close to Jiraiya in height, with wavy, dark blue hair, just a shade or two away from being black. Her rounded face held a deep blush that was visible even with her expertly tanned skin. Naruto might have mistaken the blush for embarrassment brought on by their current situation, but the added redness in her eyes along with the extravagantly fancy drink in her raised hand led him to believe that she was just really plastered.

Also, she was naked.

No tan-lines.

...At some point he had lost his initial train of thought.

Faced with this information, he said the only thing he could think to say to a drunk woman who'd just asked if he liked her boobs.

"Um...huh?"

The woman laughed again, which was interrupted by a small hiccup. She leaned forward, stumbling slightly in the process. "You know, normally a guy will buy a girl a drink before putting the moves on her."

Naruto fidgeted, wishing the woman wouldn't lean so close and, thereby, press her chest so firmly into his, but at the same time not wanting to step back for fear that she might fall face-first into the sand if he did. "Er, sorry lady, I just wasn't looking where I-"

"What did you call me?"

Naruto blinked, surprised at the sudden alert look on the woman's face. "Uh...Lady?"

She leaned in even further, placing her free hand on the back of Naruto's head to pull him closer to her own face. She squinted down at him for several long seconds, with Naruto growing more uncomfortable with each passing one.

"Minato-chan?" she breathed in awe.

Discomfort gave way to irritation. Another person confusing him for the Yondaime? "Look lady, you've got the wrong- MLPH!"

He suddenly found himself so deep in the woman's cleavage that his ears popped from the pressure.

xxx

Far away, Jiraiya had the sudden urge to strike something.

xxx

"Oh Minato-chan!" the woman cried as she crushed Naruto's body against hers, twisting back and forth and shaking the helpless boy like a rag doll. "I knew you'd come back! And you even remember my pet name!"

Naruto was too busy suffocating to form a rational argument, though his waking fourteen year old libido didn't seem to think the situation required an argument of any sort. Unfortunately for it, breathing was all together more important than sex, and so he struggled harder.

Finally, she loosened her grip just enough to allow him to come up for air, but he'd barely managed to inhale once before she swung him around and began dragging him along the beach with her. "We have so much catching up to do! Come on, let's go get a drink!"

"You have one," he mumbled weakly, trying to ignore the fact that the woman's breast was still pressed firmly against the side of his face.

She paused, staring at the blue beverage with its tiny umbrella and miniature slices of fruits which were speared through with little plastic swords in her hand as though she were seeing it for the first time. Then after a moment's hesitation, she drained the entire thing in two gulps. "Problem solved!" she declared happily.

After much protesting and resisting (though he would later admit that he probably could have resisted a bit harder if he'd really tried), Naruto allowed himself to be deposited on the stool of a random nearby bar, which in itself was just a large, circular counter loaded down with everything you could ever imagine seeing on the counter of a bar, all shaded beneath a palm-leaf roof.

"Jan-chan!" his drunken new companion called, slapping her palm on the glass countertop just in case he hadn't heard her shouting. "I need two more of whatever I had last time! And something for my friend, too!"

Jan-chan, who Naruto deduced as the bartender, was a balding, lightly tanned, pudgy sort of guy wearing straw sandals, a long grass skirt and a blue and orange flowery lei. He had been preoccupied with using a dirty rag to clean out the glasses, just as all bartenders did when they weren't actively serving someone, when he heard the woman's call. Turning, he smiled familiarly at her before looking questioningly at Naruto.

"You seem a little short to be drinking, bud," he greeted.

Naruto, miffed over the fact that he'd only recently began having growth spurts, frowned at the man's words. "Yeah? Well...you seem a little fat to be topless, bud!"

Jan leaned over the counter, getting face-to-face with him. "...Touché, _bud_," he muttered reluctantly.

"He's with me, Jan-chan," the woman explained blissfully. "Bring him something special, won't you?"

Jan ended his staring contest with Naruto and shrugged. "F'you say so, Chisako-sama."

Jan walked to the opposite end of the gazebo and began mixing, while Naruto glanced cautiously at the woman, not completely comfortable yet with her casual nakedness, but at least thankful that he now had a name to work with. And by some twist of luck she also knew Minato. Perhaps he would be able to learn a bit more about the illustrious man than the fact that he was apparently a player who loved crappy food.

That in mind, he turned to face her-

And immediately found his face pressed into her bountiful chest again.

"Oh, Minato-chan," Chisako gushed. "It's been such a long time!"

"Mi'm...moph...Minapho," he mumbled, concentrating very hard on not getting blood on the older beauty.

"Now, now, you can't fool me, Minato-chan! You remembered your pet name for me after all," she rationalized.

Naruto valiantly pried his head from the valley, shaking himself back to full attention. "What, you mean 'Lady'? Oh, come on; I can't have been the only...er, I mean, Minato couldn't have been..." He gave his head an extra shake, gathering his thoughts. "Lots of people probably call you that!"

Chisako held up a finger. "Not just 'Lady'. 'Little Lady', remember? Because I hated being taller than most men, you'd call me 'Little Lady' to make me feel better."

"But I never called you Little Lady back there! I just called you Lady!"

She shrugged as Jan the bartender swung by and deposited three tall beverages and five smaller shot glasses in front of them. "Yes, well...I knew what you meant. It has been a long time, after all..." She took a sip of one of her drinks before suddenly seizing him by the arms. "Why didn't you ever come to visit me like you promised?"

"Sorry," Naruto grumbled weakly. "I guess I was just too busy _not knowing you because I'm not who you think I am!_"

The woman crossed her arms under her chest (which Naruto gallantly averted his gaze from) and huffed. The indignant act was spoiled by another burst of hiccups, but she recovered quickly. "I know why you wouldn't come. Big brother got rid of that special seal that you gave me and you didn't want to take the time to visit my by foot, right?"

No, I-"

"Then you were just too scared of him." Her scowl turned into a pout as she nursed her drink. "Even though I sent you that letter years ago to tell you that he wasn't the Mizukage anymore, and therefore couldn't carry out an order to execute you for being within five hundred feet of me." She sniffled. "I started to think you didn't like me."

Oh God, no! The last thing he needed was for a naked, drunk woman to start crying in front of him. That seemed like the sort of thing that could happen to Jiraiya!

"No, no, wait, wait, it's not like that!" he stammered, fumbling over himself the way so many guys did when faced with a crying girl. "I swear, I didn't come to see you because I'm honestly not M-"

Wait a minute. Back up.

_"...Mmm...F-cup...middle of something very important with..."_

Now forward again.

_"...big brother...wasn't the Mizukage anymore..."_

"You're the Mizukage's sister?" he demanded, jumping onto his stool and pointing dramatically.

Everyone in the general vicinity, with the exception of Chisako herself who was too busy draining more alcohol, turned to stare at the blonde boy. After a few awkward seconds, he coughed into his hand and sat back down. "Um, what I meant was: Your brother is, er, was the Mizukage?"

She nodded. "Of course. Up until a few years ago when he was overthrown."

"There was a revolt?" he asked, a bit intrigued. Aside from Tsunade-baachan and Gaara, he didn't really know who any of the Kage's were, and apparently even Jiraiya didn't know that someone else had taken over in Mizu.

"Oh, it was horrible!" she cried. "My poor, dear brother, overthrown by a most evil man!"

"Evil, huh?" He absentmindedly sipped at the drink in front of him, which he instantly choked on, it being ninety proof and all.

"Oh, indeed!" Chisako continued, unhindered by Naruto's choking fit. "The most evil man you would ever meet! Absolutely vile, with his evil, dastardly deeds! He was truly a wicked, vicious, nasty, black-hearted evil man!"

xxx

The aura that the masked man projected was both heavy and deep. It was quite unlike anything the shopkeeper had ever felt before, and he'd dealt with a lot of freaks in his time (most of them were also in Akatsuki). But this one was just...different. There was a high level of evil intent present, but it seemed so...offset for some reason. A decent comparison might be having a three-hundred pound body-builder holding you off the ground by your throat, except that he has an extremely bulbous nose, a thick red pompadour and is wearing purple sequins bellbottoms, socks that didn't match and a pink shirt with the inscription 'Sexy Grandpa' on the front. Sure, he could probably kill you with ease; it would just be a bit hard to take him seriously while he did it.

And though the guy in the swirly orange mask probably could kill him with very little trouble at all...

**"You're all out of three-ply toilet paper! You fool! Don't you realize how important it is to my mission that I retrieve a bag of three-ply toilet paper!"**

...It was still a bit difficult to take him seriously, either.

**"Kisame-san is a shark-creature-thingy, don't you see?"** Tobi rabbled on. **"That means his skin is like sandpaper! Have you ever tried dragging one or two-ply toilet paper across sandpaper! I personally haven't, but I can still imagine-"**

"Sir?" the shopkeeper intervened.

**"...Yes?"**

"Did you look on the very top shelf toward the back?"

He didn't so much see as sense Tobi blinking behind his mask before the boy turned and dashed to the other end of the store. The shopkeeper sighed; despite the quirkiness, as far as Akatsuki members went, this kid wasn't so bad. At least he hadn't tried to swindle him into lowering his prices by ninety percent, he didn't have mouths on the palms of his hands that could ruin any food that he touched but decided not to buy, and he didn't carry out threats of eating his family members when he was angry.

Poor grandma.

There was a loud crash followed by several smaller crashes before Tobi dashed back up to the counter, holding the object he'd been searching for.

"You were right, there was some back there!" he exclaimed happily. He then pulled out the scroll Zetsu had given him and scanned it carefully. "I think I have just about everything, and it says over here in the corner that once I have all I need I'm supposed to..." He held the list out toward the man. "What does this word mean?"

The man read the line and flinched. "Extort. It basically means you're supposed to intimidate me into giving you a better deal than what I've already given you."

"Oooh," Tobi said in understanding. "So Tobi is supposed to save as much money as he can, right?" The shopkeep nodded reluctantly. "Tobi can do that!"

The comically evil aura suddenly returned as Tobi reached into his pocket.

**"Alright, you foolish fool!"** he began as he pulled out a slip of paper and held it up for the man to see. **"This coupon is expired, but I demand that you accept it anyway!"**

The shopkeeper sweatdropped.

xxx

"Sounds like one evil guy," Naruto commented, now recovered and breathing properly again.

Chisako looked up from what appeared to be her third drink. "Who?"

Naruto stared at her, wondering just how smashed the woman really was at this point. "The guy you just told me about. The one who overthrew your brother?"

Chisako tilted her head, staring at the ceiling. "...Oh right, the evil man. Wicked, vicious, nasty, black-hearted evil man."

"Yeah, you mentioned that."

"Well...it bears repeating," she explained, draining her latest drink. "Because that's how wicked, vicious, nasty, black-hearted and evil he is."

"So what sort of horrible things has he been doing since becoming the new Mizukage?" he asked.

"Actually...he left the country about a week after taking over and no one has seen him since. I think he must have gotten bored, or maybe he forgot what he was supposed to be doing."

"...You're kidding, right?"

"Nope. But since he never resigned or named a successor for himself, and since no one was brave enough to name themselves his replacement for fear that he might return and unleash his wicked, vicious, nasty, black-hearted evil wrath on them, he's still technically the Mizukage."

"...Wow." He felt it was about time for a new topic; something not quite as...stupid, perhaps. "So, you and Minato were..." He twirled his hand about, hoping for some elaboration to his alluded question. "What exactly were you?"

Having knocked back two more drinks in rapid succession, Chisako sighed and rested her chin in her palms, her eyes taking on a starry, faraway quality. "Oh, Minato-chan, don't tease me like that! Why, just thinking about all the things we used to do together makes me..." She broke off into a fit of mirthful giggles.

A sudden sense of foreboding settled into Naruto's gut. He unconsciously braced himself.

An adorable little pout returned to Chisako's face. "But you were just too fast and you'd always finish before me."

Braced as he was, Naruto still couldn't stop himself from headbutting the countertop, just to distract himself before any unwanted thoughts tried to surface. Fortunately, he didn't panic too badly. This seemed very similar to those silly misunderstandings that people had in movies and such; the kind where someone would overhear part of a conversation and jump to the worst possible conclusion because they didn't have all the facts or something.

"...Just to clarify," he started slowly. "What sort of things DID the two of you do together?"

The woman turned to him, blinking blearily. "Who did what?"

Naruto took a deep breath, feeling a headache coming on. "What kind of things did you do with Minato in which he would always finish before you?"

Chisako blinked again, turning her gaze back to the ceiling, biting her lip in deep thought. Finally, she looked back at him. "Sex."

Blonde skull impacted with the countertop for a second time.

"You crack my counter and you're paying for it, bud," Jan the bartender warned him.

Ignoring the man and his own throbbing forehead, Naruto lifted his head back up, looking a bit sickly. "So...you and Minato...had sex...and he always...finished before you?"

The red-faced woman nodded. "That sounds about right, I think."

Naruto opened his mouth to speak.

"That," she added. "Or yakitori eating contests. Sometimes I get those confused."

And his mouth snapped closed. He definitely had a headache at this point. It would seem, in hindsight, that trying to get decent answers out of a drunk, naked woman wasn't such a good idea, which didn't seem fair in the slightest because it always worked for Jiraiya when he needed information on something. Now seemed like a good time to cut loses and split.

But there was one more thing...

"You didn't, uh...ever have kids, did you?" he asked a bit meekly.

Blurry, half-lidded eyes suddenly widened in shock, so much so that she nearly dropped her glass. She rounded on him. "Minato-chan...Are you asking me to have your children?"

A hundred and one possible courses of action flew through Naruto's head, but only about six of them didn't end with ramen in some way, and he couldn't seem to focus clearly on the remaining six, so he chose to sit stock-still, mouth gaping like a fish and trying to form some semblance of words that could defuse the situation.

"Nu...numawah..."

Chisako leapt to her feet. "Oh Minato-chan! I'm so happy I could just puke!"

So she did.

And then she passed out.

Thankfully, she missed the puddle.

Naruto could only stare as Jan the bartender walked around and lifted the unconscious woman up, taking her back and laying her out on a small recliner behind the bar.

"Is she always so...drunk?" Naruto asked as he came back around to clear away the empty glasses.

"You're lucky, bud," Jan answered. "You actually caught her on a pretty good day."

"...Wow."

"Let me guess: She dragged you off the beach thinking you were some rube named Minato, right?"

Naruto's eyes widened. "How'd you know that?"

Jan let out a bark of laughter. "Kid, you're the fifth person since yesterday that Chisako-sama has dragged in her claiming to be her long lost Minato-chan. Guarantee once she wakes up and gets a few more drinks in her she'll be off finding herself another one."

Naruto had no answer for that.

Jan gave him another once-over. "Come to think of it though, of all the guys she's ever dragged in here, you match his description the best. Too young, though...you his kid or something, bud?"

"God, I hope not," he mumbled, letting his head fall into his raised hands.

Jan shrugged and continued his clean-up. "Well whatever, just don't go thinking too poorly of her. She's lonely, that's all."

Naruto lifted his head. "Lonely?"

"Yeah, bud. I've known them both for a long time, and that brother of hers has always been so stupidly overprotective of her. Never letting anyone near her or letting her out of his sight. But every now and then she'll manage to sneak away and come out here to the islands where she can drink, laugh, have fun...until he tracks her down and drags her back home again."

"Wait a minute, they've both gotta be in their thirties or forties, right? How can he still be sheltering her like that at this point in their lives?"

Jan's expression turned grim. "You'd be surprised the kind of things a Kage level shinobi can do when it's important to them."

"...Good point," he admitted. "So I guess you're gonna tell me that Minato was her closest friend or...or something like that?"

Jan shrugged. "You'd definitely think so just by listening to her. She never talks about anyone else the way she talks about him. Could have been lovers, for all I know."

Naruto shuddered, remembering the drunken ramblings he'd heard not five minutes ago concerning the sister of the former Mizukage and his would-be father. That brought up a lot of questions that he didn't think he wanted to hear the answers to, at least not until he got a better understanding of just what sort of person Namikaze Minato really was.

And as for Chisako...

Jan finished stacking the emptied glasses and turned back toward the boy just in time to have a slip of paper forced into his hand. Confused, he held it up to see. He'd never been a shinobi himself, but he easily recognized the seal paper, if not the actual seal that was drawn upon it.

"You trying to blow me up, bud?" he asked lightly.

Naruto shook his head and got to his feet. "No, just..." He gestured toward the sleeping Chisako. "If she wakes up before her brother finds her, will you give her that for me?"

"What's it do?" he wondered, not bothering to mask his suspicion.

Naruto shrugged with a small smile. "I don't really know. There's a chance that it'll make her happy, but that'll sort of depend on a few things..."

Jan stared into his eyes, looking for anything dishonest. After about fifteen seconds, he appeared satisfied and slipped the Hiraishin seal into his waistband. "All right, then."

Naruto smirked happily. "Great!" Then he turned instantly serious. "Now then, before I leave I have one more thing to ask you."

"What's that, bud?"

"Is there even a single decent ramen shop on this whole FREAKIN' ISLAND!"

xxx

**And to wrap things up: An Omake!**

**Nice Hat**

The Mizukage was growing slightly frustrated. Earlier that morning, he had left the sanctity of his tower and gone into the village on the advice of his councilmen. Apparently, showing your face amongst the people every once in a while was good for morale or something. He didn't really care about that so much.

But what he did care about was the boy in the orange mask who had tailed after him ever since he'd stepped out. The stranger had kept a respectable distance at first, but had slowly grown bolder in approaching him as the time passed. And try as he might to ignore him, now that he was on his way back to the tower he found the boy walking side-by-side with him, peering up at him through the single eye-hole of the swirly orange mask.

"Can I help you with something?" he finally asked upon realizing that if he didn't the boy would probably follow him right into his office.

"Hi, I'm Tobi!" the boy greeted cheerfully.

"...Good for you. Now what do you want?"

"Weeell, I was just wondering," he asked with failed nonchalance as he bounced on the balls of his feet. "Where did you get your hat?"

The Kage blinked. "Pardon?"

"Your hat. It's really cool," Tobi elaborated. "And I was wondering where I could get one like it."

The Mizukage blinked again, tilting his head to look up at his Kage's hat, with its blue Water symbol and the soft cloth that looked like drapes for his face. "I got this hat for being the Mizukage," he said, feeling like he was trying to explain a fairly basic concept to a particularly slow child. "It's not one that you can just go out and buy somewhere."

Tobi drooped. "Aww." But he straightened back up rather quickly. "Can I wear your hat?"

"Wha-? Of course not! I just told you only the Mizukage can wear this hat!"

"Oh." Tobi lowered his head, thinking about that for a moment. "Then...can I be Mizukage?"

He stared at the boy, dumbfounded by the innocence of the request. Looking around, he realized that they'd drawn quite a crowd, waiting anxiously to see what was going on between the two of them. Slowly, he began to smirk. As long as he was mingling with the people, he might as well show off a little, lest they forget why he'd been made Mizukage in the first place.

"Sure boy, you can be Mizukage," he answered, grinning widely. "All you have to do is defeat me."

"Defeat you?" the masked boy parroted.

"That's right. Only the very best are allowed to be Mizukage."

Tobi nodded in understanding. "So I have to beat you. ...Tobi can do that!"

All at once, a strangely sinister aura began to flow from the boy.

Well, maybe 'sinister' was too strong of a word. It was definitely evil and dangerous in its intent, but it was more dangerous in the sense of some guy threatening to beat your skull in with a large hammer, only he couldn't find a real hammer and so instead was using one of those big squeaky inflatable hammers that you win at carnival games.

**"All right then, puny mortal!"** he growled in a voice a bit deeper than it had been a second ago.

The crowd braced themselves, as did the Mizukage; the boy may prove to be more challenging than he first appeared.

**"Pick a number between one and ten!"**

He blinked. "Uh, seven."

**"Nope, it was three! Hat's mine!"**

The collective crowd faceplanted in unison as Tobi gleefully reached up to retrieve his prize. The thunderstruck Mizukage barely regained his wits in time to grab the boy's hand before he could take it. "Now wait just a damn minute!" he roared.

Tobi stared at him, expectantly.

"...Best two out of three!"

xxx

Fifteen minutes later...

"Jan-Ken-Pon!"

Tobi threw Rock.

The Mizukage threw Scissors.

"Now look THAT WAY!" the masked boy cried, pointing in the exact same direction that the older man's head turned. "YAY! I win again!"

"NO, DAMNIT! HOW CAN THIS BE HAPPENING?"

Chisako rushed to her brother's side. "Brother, please just surrender already! I can't bear to see this happen to you any longer!"

"No! I will NEVER GIVE UP!" He glared at the hateful boy. "One more time!"

xxx

Thirty minutes later...

The Mizukage fell to his hands and knees, sweat pouring from his face.

"WOO-HOO!" Tobi whooped at his latest victory.

The horror...the horror...

He'd lost. Again and again and again, he'd lost; each defeat more crushing and decisive than the last. Defeated thirty-eight times in a row at 'What Number am I Thinking of', losing more times than he could remember at Janken and Look This Way, but it hadn't ended there. The boy had gone on to mercilessly destroy him at Jacks, hopscotch, Old Maid, Paper Football, Kick the Can, and Dance Dance Karaoke!

He wearily lifted his head, not missing how the crowds were refusing to look at him. But even as they stared elsewhere, he could see the terror and the pity in their eyes. Pity for him!

Oh, the shame of it all! He'd never be able to live this day down!

"So can I have the hat now?" Tobi asked upon completing his victory dance.

The Mizukage tore the hat from his head and flung it at the boy, trying to fight back the tears of humiliation. "Here! Take it!" he choked, his voice cracking. "I didn't want it anymore anyway!" Climbing shakily to his feet, he grabbed Chisako's hand and led her through the gap that the crowd provided them. "Come on sister, we're leaving! And we're NEVER coming back!"

Tobi's delight at winning his new hat was slightly ruined at the loss of his new friend. But he couldn't stay sad for too long; it was a huge village after all. He could still make more friends. Grinning behind his mask, he turned to the crowd. "Does anyone else want to play with Tobi?"

The people nearly killed one another in their haste to escape a humiliating fate similar or even worse to their former Kage's.

No one knew who this boy was; all they could say for certain was that he was evil. Wicked, vicious, nasty, black-heartedly evil!

xxx

Naruto stared at the nude woman for several seconds, trying to find his voice again while she slurped down another blue beverage. Finally, he managed a weak response. "Are you...sure that's how it happened?"

Chisako blinked at him, looking lost. "How what happened?"

Naruto could only facepalm.

xxx

**LL**


	5. Chapter 5

Tobi grunted in effort, pushing fiercely against the enormous sack before him in an attempt to fit it through the shop entrance. And with the sack now bulging to nearly twice the boy's height and as big around as it was tall, it was truly no mean feat. The shopkeeper watched from behind the counter, wondering what had possessed the boy to ask for only a single bag to carry all of his purchases.

The masked boy stepped back and grumbled, then made the gesture, and the sound, of spitting into his hands (making the shopkeeper cringe), rubbed his palms together, then charged at the sack, driving his shoulder into it, and causing it to slide easily through the doorway.

Not just through the opening, but actually _through_ the wall around the opening of the doorway, as if the solid structure hadn't even been there.

The shopkeeper decided to not ask questions. He'd had about enough of the boy for a single day. Maybe he'd close early and go home and take a nap or something.

Tobi whistled merrily as he dragged his purchases down the street. Zetsu-san and the others were going to be so proud of him! Not only had he carried out his first mission successfully, but he'd even ended up with a ton of extra bargains on top of it all. At this rate, he would be a full-fledged Akatsuki member by the end of the week, assuming one of the other members died by then, at least. It was too bad Zetsu told him not to kill any of them himself, otherwise his problems would be solved. Maybe he could do it in a way that Zetsu wouldn't realize it had been him? Maybe make it look like an accident?

Sure, why not? He was a super-sneaky ninja after all; no one would even suspect him.

But who should it be? Hmm...Not Kisame, cause he thought Tobi was funny. Not Deidara, because Tobi thought he was funny. Not Kakuzu, because from the stories he'd heard he was really hard to kill, and he tended to get mad when people attempted it. Not Zetsu, he was the one giving out the jobs. Maybe Itachi? ...Nah, for some reason he felt like he was supposed to keep him alive for a while longer. Why was that again?

A dark feeling stirred in the back of the boy's mind. He scratched at the spot on his head and it away.

...Oh well, he'd probably remember later.

As he continued to contemplate which of his friends he should murder for his own personal gain just like any true Uchiha would, a rumbling from his stomach made itself known.

"Maybe I would be able to formulate better plots on a full stomach?"

xxx

Shizune calmly pushed open the door to the Hokage's office, holding up a small folder in her other hand.

"Tsunade-sama, I found those missing files on the-"

She immediately had to brace herself against the wall to prevent her legs from completely giving out beneath her; the mentioned files falling from her hands in the process. Neither she nor Tsunade really noticed as they spilled out across the floor. Tsunade was too preoccupied with staring out her window off into the distance while her apprentice's wide-eyed gaze was transfixed upon the enormous pile of money lying on her desk.

"Ts-Tsunade-sama?"

"What, Shizune?" the older woman asked casually.

"...Did you get drunk and rob a bank?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Shizune," the Hokage scoffed as she slowly moved to sit on the edge of her desk. She stared down at the pile of money with a look of uncertainty that someone might have when staring at a stray puppy that might or might not have rabies. "As it turns out, I happen to have won the Elemental Continent's Decennial Grand Prize Sweepstakes this morning."

"...The Elemental Continent's Decennial Grand Prize Sweepstakes?" Shizune repeated.

"Yep."

"And we're talking about the contest that's only held every ten years, right?"

"That is what 'decennial' means, yes."

"And averages over five million entrants from all over the continent?"

"That's the one."

"And you won it?"

"Yes, Shizune."

"...You really need to take that money back to the bank, Tsunade-sama. I'm sure if we just explain to them what happened; tell them you were drunk at the time-"

"Shizune."

"-even if you weren't it shouldn't be too difficult to convince them either way, and since you are the Hokage, they'll probably just let you off fairly easy-"

"Shizune!"

"-but then again, that is an insane amount of money. Even as the Hokage, you could probably end up doing time in prison-!"

"Listen to me!"

"Oh God, what will the villagers say when they find out? The Hokage: Reducing herself to that of a common criminal? A scandal like this could cause uprisings! The shinobi factions would revolt! Assassination attempts would-"

A fist impacted with the wall two centimeters to the side of Shizune's head, causing deep cracks to spider-web out to a four foot diameter. It also caused Shizune to temporarily pause in her hysterical ranting and actually notice the irritated look the older woman was giving her.

"...I know this is all very distressing news, Tsunade-sama, but violence isn't going to solve your problems this time."

"Shizune, would you shut-"

"Of course, violence has never really solved your problems in the past either; usually just sort of compounded them. Pushing them back temporarily, causing them to bunch up together until some sort of bursting point is reached, and then they would all come crashing down on you at once like a broken dam."

"Shut up!"

"But the fact of the matter is: you did break the law, and you're going to have to pay for your mistakes, no matter what the-"

A second fist met the wall on the other side of Shizune's head, this time causing the entire thing to crumble apart. The brunette snapped instantly back to attention, seeing the quivering Hokage bearing down on her.

"Shizune," the Godaime heaved deeply. "I'm not in a good mood, and you are making it much worse. So please: think really, really hard about what you want to say next before actually saying it."

Shizune opened her mouth, but was cut off.

"Think about it a little longer."

Shizune sweatdropped and took a few seconds to compose herself. "I'm...I'm okay now, Tsunade-sama."

"Good," Tsunade said, finally pulling her hands back and stepping away from the rubble that was her former wall. "Now listen carefully: I did not steal this money. I won it in the Decennial sweepstakes. I was just informed of it this morning and the representatives just left five minutes ago from dropping off my winnings here. Understand?"

"Yes, Tsunade-sama. Though, I really wish you would have simply explained that to me instead of taking your frustrations out on the wall. It's going to take quite a while to get that fixed, you know?"

Tsunade's fist clenched tighter. "Shizune, I swear to God-"

"And to be fair, you can't really blame me for doubting that you could ever be lucky enough to win a contest like that, right?"

"Yeah? Well imagine how _**I**_ must have felt when I found out I'd won when I hadn't even entered the damn thing!"

Shizune's eyebrow quirked sharply. "...You're just screwing with me now, aren't you, Tsunade-sama?"

"No Shizune, I'm not," the older woman stated gravely as she moved back to her desk, falling limply into her seat. "Obviously, I had INTENDED to enter, but what with becoming Hokage, trying to get everything rebuilt and running again after the invasion, the problems with Sasuke and Naruto and Akatsuki and everything else that's been going on since then, it just completely slipped my mind.

"I found out this morning after I was declared the winner, though, that a couple of the girls from downstairs had decided to enter my name in as a joke. And I won...and now here I am, with more money than I've ever had in my life...and I'm just waiting to see when the other shoe is going to drop."

"...Oooh," Shizune said weakly, finally understanding what Tsunade was getting at. Everyone who knew anything at all about Tsunade knew what happened whenever she got lucky. She took another look at the enormous stacks of money, then turned back to the Hokage. "It's going to be a really big shoe, isn't it?"

"And made of an especially hard material, I'm sure," the Hokage agreed solemnly.

The two women were silent for a while, thinking the matter over and wondering what sort of Armageddon-ish horror the future had in store for them, before another thought came to Shizune.

"Well...maybe it won't happen this time."

Tsunade snorted loudly.

"No, I'm serious!" the brunette went on. "I mean, think about it this way: You just won a ton of money, right?"

"Right."

"From a contest that you didn't actually enter yourself in, right?"

Tsunade's brow creased, wondering where this was going. "...Right."

"Well, so maybe...it wasn't YOUR luck that won you this money; it was actually the luck of the people who entered you, you see?"

Tsunade's eyebrows shot up, looking like she'd just been hit with the mother of all epiphanies. "And...if it was due to their luck that I won and not mine, that would mean..." She suddenly stood up, knocking her chair over in her haste. "That would mean that I could actually enjoy the spoils of victory without having to worry about any gut-wrenching fear of retribution from whatever god it is that seems to hate me so damn much!" She reached out and began running her hands lovingly across the pile of money beside her. "I could actually take this money and use it how I want instead of purposely losing it all in another casino or giving it away to a charity or something equally lame like that! I could buy things that I've always wanted, pamper myself-"

A female ANBU jumped through the hole in the wall and knelt down immediately. "Hokage-sama, I have an emergency message for you!"

"-execute the next person who gives me bad news!" she shouted to the sky, grabbing a paperweight from her desk and flinging out her window before rounding furiously on the masked woman. "What!"

Uzuki Yugao blinked, the killing intent suddenly directed at her making her temporarily forget why she'd come in the first place. "...Um."

"Is it bad news?" she demanded fiercely. "Because God help you if it is."

Yugao began to sweat. "W-well, not really 'bad' news, exactly...I don't think. More uh, more like...'strange' news, I guess."

Tsunade glared a moment longer before relenting. "Fine. Spill it."

"Well, my squad and I just returned from the borders at Kusagakure. It seems that some of our Intel has picked up a lot of strange rumors coming out of Earth Country."

Tsunade cringed. Any news coming from there couldn't possibly be pleasant. "Go on," she reluctantly urged.

"According to them, word is that earlier this morning the Yellow Flash was sighted in Iwa."

Absolute silence fell over the room, lasting a good thirty seconds before a piece of rubble fell from the broken wall, snapping them all out of their trance.

"I want you to repeat that," Tsunade commanded.

The kunoichi cleared her throat, and spoke as clear and concise as she could. "Earlier this morning, the Yellow Flash was sighted in Iwa."

Tsunade appeared to be mulling the statement over in her head, then nodded slowly before turning to address her apprentice. "Please repeat what she just said, word for word."

"Earlier this morning, the Yellow Flash was sighted in Iwa," Shizune monotonously recited.

Tsunade nodded again, a bit slower this time. "Okay, now I'm going to repeat back what I think I just heard you both say, and you tell me how accurate I'm being."

They both nodded.

"Earlier this morning...The Yellow Flash...was sighted in Iwa."

"Correct."

"Exactly."

"I see."

Another long, painful silence followed.

"I can't _possibly_ be the only one here who notices a glaring problem with any of this, can I?" the Hokage finally asked.

"Well," Shizune said after a moment of thought. "There is the fact that our ANBU were able to relay a message all the way from the Iwa borders back to Konoha in only a few hours, when normally it would take days, which quite honestly makes me feel that those responsible for such a feat deserve some kind of bonus-"

"I humbly agree," Yugao chimed in.

"-but I think the more likely answer you're looking for would be the fact that the Yellow Flash was the nickname of the Yondaime Hokage, Namikaze Minato, who as we all know is dead and gone, and therefore could not have possibly been seen in Iwagakure earlier today, or any time within the last fifteen years for that matter. Right?"

"Yes, that." Tsunade rubbed firmly on her temples. "This must all be some kind of scheme; a trick by some other village to increase tension between Konoha and Iwa." She returned her attention to Yugao. "Exactly how reliable are these so-called rumors?"

"Admittedly, some of the things being said were a bit mottled, but the things we heard for certain involved a mass retreat into the village shelters for the civilian populous until further notice, extra guards stationed on the outskirts of the canyon, and a banquet being thrown by the Tsuchikage himself."

"...Banquet?" Tsunade repeated incredulously.

"Yes, apparently it's some sort of..." The purple-haired woman reached into her vest pocket, pulling out a small notebook she'd used to write the details in. "Ah yes: an 'I-Told-You-So' banquet for all of his council members."

"Ah." The old fogy still loved to gloat, it seemed. "Anything else worth mentioning?"

"Not really, Hokage-sama. The only other thing we picked up was that the Tsuchikage had raised an official ban on ramen for the entire village after the Yellow Flash sighting, but I can't really see how that would be of any signifi-"

She was cut off by a loud splintering crack, as Tsunade inadvertently ripped a large chunk of wood from the edge of her desk, her face twitching furiously all the while.

"H-Hokage-sama?"

Tsunade ignored her, walked to the far wall and braced her arm against it, her eyes closed and head bowed in deep thought.

It had to be a coincidence. There was just no other excuse. Not unless Jiraiya had...but no; Jiraiya surely wouldn't do something so stupid. Not after she had expressly forbidden him from doing it. Not after he'd sworn up and down, backward and forward to her that he wouldn't do it. Not after she'd told him, in explicit detail, exactly what she would do to him if she found out he'd gone and done it anyway.

Jiraiya may have been a lot of things, but even he couldn't be so foolish as to try teaching **That Technique** to someone as young and unprepared as Naruto.

He couldn't.

...

She turned around, ignoring the look of concern on Shizune's face, and again address Yugao. "You have a new mission."

"Ma'am?"

"You are going to round up a group of Hunter Nin, and then you're going to go out and find Jiraiya."

Yugao barely managed a nod, surprised by the sudden order.

"Right now, he could be just about anywhere, so be certain that the people you take know how to track long distance and gather reliable intel. Once you locate him, your first objective will be to find out whether or not Uzumaki Naruto is still with him. If he is not, you personally will bring Jiraiya back to Konoha, kicking and screaming if need be, while the rest of your group goes on to search for Naruto. And if, for any reason, Jiraiya should try to run from you, you are authorized to use as much force as deemed necessary to subdue him while still keeping him alive. Understood?"

Yugao took a few moments to absorb everything that she'd just been told. "And I'm allowed to hand-pick the team that I will be leading?"

"So long as they're up to the task, I really don't care who or how many you take along. In fact, the more the better, as far as I'm concerned."

Yugao smirked behind her mask. She had quite a few friends in the Hunter Division who would love an authorized excuse to forcefully subdue Jiraiya due to...past incidents.

xxx

Far away, Jiraiya had the sudden urge to dig a hole and bury himself in it.

xxx

"You leave as soon as your team is formed," Tsunade commanded. "Dismissed."

"At once, Hokage-sama!" the masked woman stated. Rising from her kneeling position, she hurried to the hole where the door used to be, then stopped and looked back over her shoulder. "Are you aware that there's a hole in your wall, Hokage-sama?"

Tsunade stared at her.

"...I suppose it would be a bit difficult not to notice, given its size," she surmised.

"And the fact that she put it there herself," Shizune added, missing the death glare Tsunade gave her.

"Oh, I see. ...Redecorating?"

"Anger management issues," the brunette corrected.

"Really? Well you know my cousin used to have anger issues. I could tell you about some much more cost efficient ways for dealing-"

She was cut off by the sharp cracking of Tsunade's knuckles. "Leave," she prompted.

"Yes Ma'am!" the kunoichi said, snapping back to attention and vanishing without another look back.

Tsunade propped her chair back up and collapsed into it, actually feeling her true age for the first time in quite a while. "Why do the gods hate me, Shizune?" she asked as she stared hatefully yet longingly at her recently acquired riches.

"Well if I were to venture a guess, I'd say it might have something to do with the time you destroyed that really big and famous temple in the Waterfall Country during that drunken rampage of yours about thirty-two years ago," the younger woman theorized.

"Go call for a repairman before I strangle you, Shizune."

"...Yes, ma'am."

xxx

Six Hiraishin jumps later, three of which had led to three more beach resorts (ramen shops not included), another which had dropped him into the middle of a swamp, and another one dropping him into an open-air hot spring, which had helped greatly in washing away the grime from the swamp while at the same time adding three new bumps to his head courtesy of the angry female hot spring bathers, Naruto now found himself at the edge of a thankfully normal-looking town.

Well, no one was naked or fleeing in terror. That alone made it one of the most normal places he'd found himself in all day.

He entered the town, looking for someone who might tell him where he was, and mentally deciding that if he were inside the Fire Country he was just going to WALK back to Konoha. It might take an extra day or two, but at least it wouldn't be nearly as aggravating as the last few hours of his life had been.

Spotting a man walking the street toward him, Naruto moved to block his path. "Hi. What country is this?" he greeted to the man's bewilderment.

"Pardon?"

He pointed downward. "This village; is it in the Fire Country?"

"...No."

Naruto remained perfectly calm. "Peachy. Does this place sell ramen?"

The man's face twisted in confusion. "I, what?"

"Is there, or is there not, a place that sells ramen anywhere in this village?" he repeated, still calm to an unnerving level.

"Well…yeah. There's a place over there in the square," the man replied, pointing down the road over his shoulder.

"Are you sure about that?"

"Y-yes?"

"Because you don't sound completely certain that there's really ramen over there," Naruto informed him.

"...There's ramen."

"If I go over there and I don't find ramen, I'm going to come looking for you, and when I find you-"

"There's ramen," he said with increased finality.

Naruto stared into the man's eyes several seconds longer before nodding. "Okay then, thanks." But as he began walking toward the square, he sent back one last steely glance over his shoulder.

The shopkeep shook his head and continued home. First the new Akatsuki kid, then being threatened by strangers over ramen. Maybe it was time he just sold the damn shop and moved to some place to bit more peaceful. Like Kiri.

xxx

Naruto didn't have to go far before the scent hit him. Oh God, yes! That sweet, spicy, heavenly aroma that he'd been searching for what felt like weeks for! Sure, it had only been a few hours, but with all the detours and the situations that had come with them made it seem so much longer, and so much more gratifying now that he'd reached it! It was a positively orgasmic smell!

He dashed around the corner of the street, and there it was! Right on the opposite side of the square, fourth stand to the right. It even had a sign above it: 'Hot, Fresh Ramen', it read. So unless someone was playing a really, really cruel joke on him (and given his day so far he could almost believe it), he was really only a handful of meters away from his treasure.

He began walking slowly, careful to keep it in his sights lest it poof out of existence like a cancelled genjutsu while he wasn't looking. The curtained doorway was pulled open, allowing him to see the only two occupants inside: one customer and one chef. Despite having his back toward Naruto, it was the customer that grabbed his attention. Something about that black cloak with the red clouds on it that seemed familiar in some troubling way. He was certain that he'd seen it before somewhere...

He staggered to a halt as a flash of memory hit him. That was the same cloak that Sasuke's older brother and that freaky fish guy had been wearing the last time they'd met. And if this guy was wearing the same outfit, and he was here now, it could only mean one thing.

Akatsuki was attacking that ramen shop.

Akatsuki.

Was attacking.

A ramen shop.

...

Naruto's eyes flashed red.

"I knew you were evil," he spoke in a flat, deathly tone.

Red-orange chakra began bubbling out around him.

"I just never realized the depths that your evilness would stoop."

From the chakra sprouted a tail. Then a second.

"Attacking me. Trying to capture me. Hoping to use the power of the Kyubi and other biju for your own twisted schemes. I would deal with that. Handle it rationally.

People walking by who noticed him began fleeing in various directions.

"But I'm wet. I'm lost. I'm hungry. I'm not in a good mood."

An Odama Rasengan formed unconsciously in his hand.

**"And that's my ramen you're fucking with!"**

Then he was sprinting wildly toward the endangered shop, tunnel-vision locked onto the back of the unsuspecting villain who dared to try taking away his happiness.

The foolish man wouldn't even know what hit him.

xxx

xxx

**More to come when it's written. Good day to you all.**

**LL**


	6. Chapter 6

On a grassy hillside overlooking a small village on the border of the Waterfall Country stood a small cluster of cherry-blossom trees; their petals currently in full-bloom. With the pale pink petals drifting lazily in the warm, gentle breeze, it created a picture of peace and serenity, and a view that any landscape artist would kill for the opportunity to capture on canvas. And beautiful though it was, it would probably come as a bit of a surprise to see who was currently sitting under the tallest of the trees enjoying it all.

"This is so mind-numbingly boring!"

Enjoying, being a subjective term, of course.

"Aren't you bored as hell out here too, Itachi?"

"Kisame, as Uzumaki Naruto is currently traveling with Jiraiya of the Sannin, we have little choice but to wait out our time for the moment when we are best suited to strike. And since we have no clue as to their current location, it will do us no good to search for them until word comes from our scouts. Therefore, until they are found and we are given proper instruction from Pein-sama, we have little choice but continue simply biding our time."

"...That was a pretty long-winded way of saying 'No, Kisame, I'm not bored, but thanks for asking'."

Itachi ignored his aquatic teammate. Truth be told, he actually was growing rather bored with their situation, not that he would ever admit to it. The two of them had successfully captured the Gobi several months ago, and hadn't done much of anything since besides attempt to track the movements of their original target. It was proving to be more difficult than originally thought, as Jiraiya was showing an amazing ability of keeping all pursuers off their trail. He and the boy would never settle down for more than a day or two in each place that they went, meaning that even when one of their scouts managed to find them and send word, they would be long gone before anyone else could reach them. The scouts would usually be found dead, as well. Someone was going to have to talk to Zetsu about the quality of fodder he'd been hiring recently.

Kisame stood up and stretched his arms out restlessly. "You wanna...I don't know, spar or something while we're waiting?"

Itachi glared up at him from the corner of his eye. "Your hate is not strong enough to challenge me."

"What? Hey, I hate lots of stuff! Like...fishermen...and sushi bars, and um...oh, people who eat at sushi bars-"

"Regardless," Itachi interrupted, already growing tired of the fish puns. "There is no point in wasting our chakra on such trivial matters as sparring." That, and there was always the slightest chance that Kisame might actually beat him.

But only the slightest.

Probably.

Best not to take that chance, at any rate.

Kisame sighed, giving Samehada a few lazy swings. "Well I'm going stir-crazy here! I gotta do something to liven things up or I'll go nuts. Jeez, never had to worry about boredom back in Kiri."

The Uchiha fought valiantly to not roll his eyes in irritation. No matter how much he hated Kisame's pointless ramblings, he still had an unflappable image to maintain.

"Yeah, those were the days," Kisame continued as he gazed up at the clouds through the trees. "Hunter nins, enemy assassins and people mistaking blue, scaly skin as some sort of Bloodline all on your trail all day and all night, forcing you to constantly sleep with both eyes open; not healthy, by the way, and burns like a bastard when you regain consciousness. But still worth it for all the fun you had. But now? Hell, I haven't been properly ambushed once since joining Akatsuki. Not once!"

"That's nice, Kisame," Itachi replied dismissively.

"Doesn't make much sense to me, you know? It's not like we don't have massive bounties on our heads, or anything. I mean, we're the biggest of the Big Bads, the Akatsuki! World Infamous! Elites! We're the guys who level entire villages and capture biju for fun and recreation, for God's sake!"

"That is not why we do it."

"...Really?" he asked, sounding genuinely surprised. "Then why do we do it?"

"We do it because..." Itachi then realized for what seemed like the first time that he wasn't sure why they were capturing the bijus. Pein had never really gotten around to explaining it to them for some reason. ...Now that he thought about it, why had he even joined Akatsuki to begin with? Obviously there was the pressing matter of keeping a close eye on the man who claimed to be Madara, though he had the feeling that Madara already realized that Itachi was looking for the opportunity to end him. Why else would his personality have shifted so vastly if not for the simple reason of irritating Itachi to the point where he couldn't stand to be around him for more than a minute or two at a time?

But that was about it, really. It's not like he enjoyed what they were currently doing. And then there were his teammates; he hated most of them and partially tolerated the rest, not to mention a good portion of them were just waiting for the opportune time to murder him for humiliating them or blackmailing them or just for the Hell of it depending on which one you asked-

"Well?" Kisame prompted, interrupting the Uchiha's thoughts. "Why do we do it?"

"We do it because it is necessary to our main objective," he answered in an attempt to save face.

"Oh." The fish-man frowned. "What was our main objective again?"

"You'll have to ask Pein-sama when we get back. I'm…not in the mood to explain it to you right now."

Kisame heaved another deep sigh, laid his sword across his broad shoulders and leaned back against the tree. He suddenly brightened. "Hey, maybe the baby Uchiha will come after you again. That's always good for a laugh, huh?"

Itachi gave a dismissive grunt, mimicking his partner by leaning his head back against the tree trunk and gazing into the distance. "Foolish though my little brother may be, I don't expect to see him again for some time. His life is still not unsightly enough to compete with me yet."

"I don't know; I hear he went off and joined Orochimaru a while back." Kisame pointed out. "You can't really get much more unsightly than that."

"While I am inclined to agree, he will still have to do much better if he hopes to defeat me," Itachi informed him with no uncertainty at all.

"I guess. Would be a nice change of pace, though."

Itachi made a noncommittal sound before the two fell into silence, Itachi staring out at the horizon while Kisame shifted to a reclining position and watched the cherry blossom petals waft in the breeze.

A minute passed. Then another. And another.

"Wanna play Go Fish?"

"Shut up, Kisame."

xxx

"And here's your double beef ramen, sir," the ramen chef said, sliding a third bowl of steaming ramen in front of the masked boy.

"Thanks!"

The man stepped back, leaning against the edge of the stove as he watched the mysterious boy polish off his first bowl and start in on the second. It was a bit perplexing, the way the boy managed to eat without removing his swirly orange mask. ...It didn't look like he was slipping the noodles underneath it. It honestly looked like he was slurping them straight through the mask.

Well, at least it wasn't quite as weird as that other Akatsuki guy who ate with his hands. Literally.

"So which one do you think I should kill, Chef-san?"

Yeah, if it wasn't for the uncomfortable conversation the boy was having with him, the chef could probably say that this one was currently his least disliked member of Akatsuki that he'd met so far.

"I'm sort of leaning toward Sasori-san, myself," Tobi went on between slurps of noodles and broth. "I mean, I never really liked puppets much anyway. I always had these dreams when I was little about puppets coming to life and trying to take my heart so that they could become a real boy. Also, if I killed him then I could be partners with Deidara-san, which would be great…"

The chef sighed and tuned the boy out as he went back to cleaning. Some days it just didn't pay to live in a village frequented by sociopathic missing-nin. But at least the leasing payments were low.

As he scrubbed a used pan, he began to hear various cries of shock and terror from nearby. He frowned and turned to look outside. Then he nearly screamed himself when he saw a demonic orange creature barreling straight toward his shop. The bubbling reddish-orange shroud combined with the blood-red eyes and feral gashes on the creature's face would have terrified him enough on their own, but it was the enormous ball of swirly, blue-white chakra it was hefting that really did him in.

Then the creature roared.

"WHARRGARBL!" it bellowed wildly as it leapt into the air, thrusting the hand which held the giant orb out in front of him, targeting the masked boy's back on his descent. The chef had barely enough time to consider his own safety and dive out of the way before the thought occurred to warn the boy as well.

Too late! The creature gave another howl as it connected with its target-

-only to have it turn into a grunt of surprise as both he and the orb passed right through the boy's chest, as though he hadn't even been there.

In his own shock, the chef could just make out the look of confusion on the creature's face right before the swirling orb struck the stove.

xxx

Tobi blinked as dust and debris poured down all around him. He looked around, spotting an orange leg sticking out of one of the larger piles of rubble. Looking the other way, he saw the chef, who had been blown several yards away from the damage site, and was now staring in mute horror at where his shop used to be.

He set his chopsticks on top of his bowl, scratched gently at the point on his sternum where the stranger had passed through him, then grabbed his chopsticks again and resumed eating; being careful to pick around the wood splinters and gravel that was now floating in the broth.

xxx

Naruto groaned, slowly extracting himself from the rubble. Shaking his head, he glanced around, seeing a lot of destruction but, unfortunately, also seeing the Akatsuki member still sitting in his seat, completely unharmed. But how was that even possible? He knew for a fact that the fiend hadn't moved out of the way of his attack… And now that he thought about it, what had he hit to cause such an explosion?

"Y-you little punk!" Someone yelled. "You've destroyed my ramen shop!"

Naruto felt ice in his chest at the man's words. The numbness spread quickly when he saw that the man in question was directing his accusations toward HIM. He took another staggering look around him, spying the mangled remains of the stove buried beneath even more rubble, various cooking utensils scattered about, the scent of spilt spices and other ingredients finally registering in his mind, and finally the batch of half-cooked noodles squashed on the ground, its broth already soaked into the wooden floor. The only things that managed to survive were the villain he'd been aiming at, the section of countertop to the right side of his seat, and the two seats on either side of him.

All the horrible, unwarranted destruction, and knowing it was because of him, was just too much to take at this point.

The shop owner was about to start yelling again when the strange boy suddenly began to quiver. His eyes started shining with unshed tears, his bottom lip started trembling and a disturbing tic had appeared on the right side of his face.

The whole thing was beginning to creep the chef out. "H-hey kid…just, just calm down, okay? The place was insured anyway, so it's not that big a deal, really. It'll be okay-"

"Not it won't!" he stated weakly. "It's never going to be okay. Because I'm cursed, don't you see? That's the only logical explanation. Ever since I started trying to learn this God forsaken jutsu nothing has gone right! Oh sure, the fact that I can't get even the slightest handle on this jutsu is annoying, but I can deal. And so what if I can't find my way home? Or find Ero-Sennin? I'll get there so long as I keep trying. And hey, so I learn that my childhood idol and the guy who everyone seems to think is my dad is a womanizing deviant who can't even pick decent food to obsess over. I've gone through worse disappointment than that. Hell, I accidentally copped a feel on two different women this morning and didn't get beaten up by either of them! How many guys can say that?"

The chef continued to listen, wary as the boy's voice began to rise in volume as he gestured to the ruins around them.

"But this? This right here? This just isn't fair," he continued. "Just when I think I've found a sanctuary from all the weirdos and crazies that I've been coming across today, it's taken from me! Just like that. Actually, no! Not taken from me; I destroyed it! Manslaughter, that's what it was! I just murdered the oldest and closest friend I've ever had! The one thing that never looked down on me and told me how I wasn't good enough! If I were an Uchiha I'd have unlocked my Mangekyo Sharingan right now! And if Sasuke found out that I unlocked my Mangekyo before him he'd probably get all bitchy about it and refuse to ever come back to Konoha again! And then Sakura-chan will be upset, and if she finds out that it's MY fault that Sasuke isn't ever coming back she'll get mad at me and if you've never seen Sakura-chan angry then you can't comprehend just how horrible it really is."

He paused long enough to take a deep, shaky breath.

"AND THEN SHE'LL PROBABLY NEVER GO ON A DATE WITH ME!"

And with that long and overly hysterical rant out of his system, Naruto started bawling like a toddler with a broken toy.

The chef, unsurprisingly, couldn't come up with a proper response for any of it. Most of the lunatics he dealt with were of the evil, destructive kind, not the sobbing, rambling kind.

Fortunately, someone else was there who knew exactly what to say, even if he didn't realize it himself.

"Aw, don't feel so bad," the masked Akatsuki member said, sounding awfully chipper for someone who had just avoided a near successful attempt on his life. He held out his untouched bowl toward Naruto. "Here, have some ramen, that'll cheer you up!"

Naruto's wailing stopped in a flash. He stared up at the man he believed to have been his most mortal of enemies, then down to the bowl he was holding out toward him, and then back up again.

"For me?" he asked, pointing to the ramen and then to himself for clarification.

"Sure! I'm full, anyway."

And suddenly the guy was no longer one of Naruto's most mortal of enemies. He was a hero. A saint. A guardian angel from the heavens, come down to end his undeserved suffering.

Then again, he was still Akatsuki.

"It's not…poisoned or anything is it?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

Tobi pulled the bowl back to examine its contents. "No, but there is some plaster floating around in it. And the noodles look just a little bit undercooked. But other than that-"

He stopped trying to explain when he realized the bowl was no longer in his hand. So he settled for watching Naruto inhale the contents of the bowl in a time he wouldn't have thought possible for a human.

On paper, beef-plaster ramen didn't sound at all appetizing, but you know, with the day he'd been having so far, Naruto would eat seconds and thirds of it. Of course, at the speed he ate he barely tasted any of it anyway.

After licking the bowl clean and dislodging a couple splinters from his mouth, he returned his suspicious gaze back to the person sitting amongst the remains of the stand. Things still didn't seem to add up about this…

"You're a member of Akatsuki?" he asked.

"Yep!" Tobi answered happily, puffing his chest out. "Just started today as a grunt! They told me I can move up to full membership as soon as one of the higher-ups die."

"And that's the evil Akatsuki with all the S-ranked missing nin?"

"I think they're just misunderstood, really."

Naruto frowned. "You think the group going around attacking villages and trying to capture all the jinchuriki are just misunderstood?"

"Well, maybe they have ulterior motives for them?"

"Such as…?"

Tobi shrugged. "Petting zoo?"

"Bwah?"

"Maybe we're planning to build a really big petting zoo," he elaborated. "Did you ever consider that?"

"...No. I can honestly say I never gave that so much as a moment's consideration."

"Well, there you go then," Tobi stated, nodding in approval of his own masterful ninja art of deception by tricking the blonde and keeping him from learning Akatsuki's true purpose. Whatever purpose that might have been, anyway. Somebody back at the base could probably fill him in. Hopefully it wasn't really about a petting zoo. Boy, that would be awkward.

Then again, having his own zoo would be pretty cool...

Naruto fought the urge to sigh. The craziness that seemed to run rampant like a virus outside of Konoha was obviously contagious. Here he was having a conversation with a member of the same group out to suck the demonic fox from his body, thereby killing him in the process, and after the morning he'd had this didn't even feel all that out of place.

Of course, this guy wasn't exactly acting like someone who was out to kill him. He didn't even seem all that evil. Hell, he ate ramen, so he obviously had to have some redeeming qualities to him.

"So...you really do like ramen, right?" he asked, just to be sure.

"Well sure! What kind of person doesn't like ramen?"

Naruto's threw his arms into the air. "I KNOW, RIGHT!"

xxx

**OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE**

Without fanfare, Naruto appeared on a hilltop overlooking a giant expanse of plains. Glancing back and forth and seeing nothing distinguishing about any of it, he hung his head in defeat. This whole thing was just getting ridiculous now.

"Where on Earth am I now?"

Naruto's head lifted, a odd look on his face. He hadn't been the one to say that...

Turning around, he found himself standing in front of a boy who couldn't be much older than he was. The boy was dressed in a yellow tanktop, black pants and shoes, and a yellow and black bandana holding his black hair back. He also had a large green backpack with a red bamboo umbrella strapped to it, and a befuddled look on his face as he stared down at a map in his hands.

"Um...hi," Naruto greeted, catching the boy's attention.

"Oh, hello," the boy replied. "Say, could you tell me how to get to Nerima?"

Naruto scratched his head. "Is that anywhere near Konoha?"

"Where's Konoha?"

"..."

"..."

"Well, I'll find it."

"Yeah, good luck with that."

"You too."

xxx

"So, you're saying that you've been searching for your crewmates ever since you got into a fight with a giant marine who...slapped you halfway across the world?"

"Yeah, that's about the size of it," the green-haired swordsman affirmed with an added nod. Why the guy carried three swords with him Naruto wasn't sure, but it was pretty cool all the same. "I've been looking for weeks now, but even with this fancy tracking paper, there's no telling just how far away they all are."

"...You wouldn't, uh, happen to have an extra one of those, would you?"

"Sorry."

"Damnit. Well, I hope you find them. But in the meantime, do you know if I'm in walking distance of Konoha? Or the Fire Country?"

"What direction is it in?"

Naruto shrugged. "I dunno. If we're this close to the ocean, maybe north? Or west?"

The swordsman glanced around, finding no landmarks anywhere on the horizon. "Well if it's north, there's no place to climb here. But if it's west, then I guess you'd go to the left."

Naruto looked from one side to the other. "Your left or mine?"

"Well, yours of course," he said as though it were obvious.

Naruto shrugged again, it was the only lead he had so far. "Guess I'll try it. Good luck finding your friends."

"Thanks."

It was about a minute later before Naruto stopped short. "Wait, did he say 'climb'?"

xxx

"Okay, so let me get this straight: You guys are dead?"

"That's right," the menacing, one-eyed man stated. "Aren't you?"

"Not that I'm aware of. And it's your job to kill other dead people because they've turned into evil monsters?"

"You got it, Whiskers," the pink-haired child perched on the man's shoulder piped in.

"Wow, that might just be the weirdest thing I've heard all day." Everyone was silent for a moment, and Naruto was started to feel a bit nervous over the way the scary man with bells in his hair was staring at him. "So can either of you give me directions to Konoha?"

"Sure I can!" the girl said happily. She pointed down the road. "Just go down that way and turn left."

"Okay," Naruto nodded, focusing on making a mental list of directions.

"When you get to a crossroads, you need to turn left."

"...Okay."

"Then you'll go a little way and turn left at the next road."

"...Okaaaay."

"And then at the next road you'll turn left-"

"That'll just lead me right back here!" he shouted.

The little girl looked indignant. "Hey, are you doubting my directions? Because I'm an awesome navigator! Tell him how I'm an awesome navigator, Ken-chan!"

"Hm? Yeah sure, she's pretty awesome," he said distractedly.

Naruto gave a tired shake of his head. "Well...thanks for the help, I guess." With that, he turned to leave.

"Hey, hang on." Naruto turned back to see the scary guy bouncing a very damaged sword on his shoulder. And he did NOT like the looks of that huge grin on his face. "Before you leave: How strong are you?"

xxx

xxx

**Just to clarify: Hibiki Ryoga (Ranma 1/2), Roronoa Zoro (One Piece), Zaraki Kenpatchi & Yachiru (Bleach)**

**More to come as it's written. Happy late July 4th (if you celebrate it), and have a nice day.**

**LL**


	7. Chapter 7

**EDIT 4/20/11: Finally got around to fixing the missing scene-breaks for this story (assuming ffnet doesn't see fit to remove them for a THIRD time).**

xxx

xxx

On the southwestern border of the Lightning Country...

Hiroshi sneezed twice. "Sorry. You were saying?"

"Bratty kid," Jiraiya repeated. "Blonde, noisy, wears orange? Seen anyone like that?"

Hiroshi practically snarled, unconsciously rubbing at his blackened eye. "Yeah, I seen the little punk, and if I never do again it'll be too soon!"

Jiraiya sighed, rubbing his eyes. "You didn't badmouth his Hokage dream, did you?"

The old man quirked a questioning eyebrow, but shook his head. "Just tried to enlighten him on the obvious superiority of delicious, full-flavored yakitori as opposed to some second-rate soggy noodles in broth."

Jiraiya sighed harder, shifting his rubbing to his temples. It had to be one or the other... "How long ago was he here?"

"Couple hours, I suppose," Hiroshi grunted, not really caring to talk about the boy.

The Toad Sennin considered that. Unfortunately, with Hiraishin involved, missing Naruto by a couple hours was the same as missing him by a few seconds; he could still be equally far away with a single flash.

Well, there was nothing to be done aside from continuing what he was already doing. "Before I get out of your hair, there should be a seal somewhere in this shop that I need to get rid of."

"Already did it," Hiroshi informed him, gesturing to the stool whose surface had been scratched and shaved away to nearly nothing.

"Ah, well... alright then. Guess I'll be on my way."

"Hang on."

He turned back, seeing a conflicted expression on the cook's face.

"I just have to know; was he Minato-kun's kid?"

A flash of panic swept his face for a split second before he forced it away. Only a very select few people knew about Naruto's lineage, and with very good reason. If word managed to spread far enough that Naruto was the Yellow Flash's son, the boy's life would become even more hectic than it was now. As if being a jinchuriki and, by proxy, a target of one of the most dangerous groups of people on the continent hadn't been bad enough, he certainly didn't need old enemies of Minato's coming for his head on top of it.

And of course, Minato had managed to garner a looot of enemies in his time.

Even if this old guy was a long-time friend of Minato's, they were currently in the Lightning Country, who had about as much love loss for Konoha as Iwa did, and one slip of the tongue could prove disastrous. That in mind...

"Him? Minato's kid? Ha ha! That's a good one. But no, they're definitely not related at all. And I taught both of them, so I should know!"

Hiroshi eyed him skeptically. "They did look an awful lot alike, thought."

"What do you mean?" Jiraiya demanded. "They were completely different! I mean, Minato was taller, for one thing. And he didn't have any whisker marks on his face. Plus several other key differences that distinguish them completely from each other!"

Hiroshi remained skeptical.

"And besides, what kind of son of Minato's would choose ramen over yakitori?"

"I know, right!"

xxx

Back at the main plot...

Naruto sneezed.

"Gesundheit," the masked boy sitting next to him said.

Naruto rubbed his nose. "Thanks. What were we talking about?"

"You were explaining why ramen should be its own food group and I was periodically nodding my head in agreement."

So they continued in that fashion for several more minutes before the owner of the now obliterated ramen shop asked them to move along.

"I am so glad I met you, Tobi," Naruto admitted as they walked through the town, other people giving them a wide breadth to avoid the overstuffed sack that Tobi was dragging. "I've been all over the place today and I was honestly beginning to think that just about everyone outside of Konoha was completely freaking nuts."

Tobi laughed good-naturedly. "Well, Tobi certainly isn't nuts."

"Glad to hear it," he replied with a small laugh of his own.

"Now, the evil man that lives inside of my head? Woo, that guy's REALLY nuts."

"...In light of our newfound friendship, I'm going to ignore that."

"That's good. After all, he hardly ever gets out anyway, so really there's no need to-"

"Getting harder to ignore now, pal," Naruto informed him.

"Sorry."

The two walked in companionable silence, Naruto having, for the moment, forgotten about his troubles, while Tobi watched naruto carefully behind his mask. There was something that he really wanted to ask him, but wasn't sure how he would take it.

"So, Naruto-kun...?"

"Yeah?"

"We're friends now, right?"

Naruto nodded. Sure, he might be with Akatsuki and all, but they'd just finished bonding over ramen. That made them like blood-brothers as far as he was concerned.

"Good, good," Tobi said with a trace of unconcealed eagerness. "Well then, since we are friends, and since friends often share things with each other..." He paused, pushing his fingertips together.

"Yeah?" Naruto prompted, curious to what the masked boy was driving at.

"Could I have your jacket?"

Of the many things Naruto had thought he might hear, this was not on the list. "Pardon?"

"Your jacket," Tobi repeated, pointing at the jacket in question. "I was wondering if I could have it."

Naruto glanced down at his orange outfit, frowning deeper. "What for?"

"Weeell, as you've clearly noticed," He gestured to himself. "My mask clashes really badly with my Akatsuki cloak."

"...Clearly," the blonde nodded.

"So I figured, if I wore more orange clothes, maybe it wouldn't look quite so ridiculous."

"I...see." Naruto looked down at himself again. He didn't see any harm in giving it away. Sure, there was some sentimental value to it; it was the only one he had and he'd been wearing it since he was ten. But on the other hand, maybe he should think about buying himself a new one. One with a little more black to it...

Tobi sensed his hesitation. "If you want, I could trade you something for it. ...I know, I'll trade you your jacket for my mask!"

"But doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of having my jacket in the first-?"

He was stopped in his questioning of the obvious when Tobi pulled his swirly orange mask off, revealing a second, identical mask underneath the first.

"...Do you know Hatake Kakashi, by any chance?" he asked as he accepted the offered mask.

"Who?"

"Nevermind." He removed his jacket a bit reluctantly and handed it over, examining his new possession as he did. "What's with the one eye-hole?"

"It let's me see through it," Tobi explained as three objects slipped out the opening of his enormous bag. The first two landed with a hollow thump while the third made more a metallic clang.

"Silly me. What was I thinking?" Naruto grumbled as he picked up Tobi's spilt goods and stuffed them back in, seeing as Tobi was too busy trying to force his new jacket on OVER his Akatsuki cloak.

"This is great!" Tobi declared once he succeeded. He did a little twirl with his arms spread, letting the cloak and open jacket twist around him. "I'm at least thirty percent more stylish this way! Now if I could just remember where I left my awesome hat, I'd be all set."

The now-more-fashionable Akatsuki member happily hefted his coupon-extorted goods and flashed Naruto an unseen grin. "Well, it was nice meeting you, Naruto-kun, but I'd better get this stuff back to the lair before Zetsu-san gets mad. I hope we can meet again and have more ramen together someday soon."

Naruto nodded his agreement. "Thanks, Tobi. And I hope, um...well, I guess I hope one of the other Akatsuki guys dies so you can take his place," he responded for lack of anything better to hope for his new friend.

"Oh yes, I'm sure one of them will soon enough. Very soon enough." Tobi answered with a surprisingly dark laugh. Naruto felt that had Tobi's hands not been holding onto his bag, he'd be rubbing them together fiendishly as he spoke.

"Well, bye!" he said, all traces of darkness gone as he turned and walked away, whistling merrily which his bag dragging behind him.

Naruto watched him go for a while, then shook his head in bemusement. He briefly wondered how it was possible to meet so many psychos and weirdos in the span of one morning. He really needed to get back home before he started acting like them.

He looked down at the spiraly orange mask in his hand. "So, what am I supposed to do with you?" On an impulse, he decided to try it on. The single eye-hole was a bit of an annoyance, but he could deal with it. Walking over to a shop window, he stared at his reflection and found that he kind of liked it. It was a shame that he'd given away his jacket, it really would have gone well together with the mask.

"...I _really_ need to get back home," he declared and, without further delay, formed the hand-seal that would, hopefully, accomplish just that.

xxx

Haruno Sakura sank slowly into the steamy hot spring, the heat instantly soothing tense muscles and weary bones. She didn't stop until the water reached her chin, at which point she gave a low moan of contentment.

"Geez, Forehead. You make studying under Hokage-sama sound akin to spending time in the Interrogation cells."

"'s more accurate than you know, Ino-pig," she mumbled in reply. "She's an absolute slave-driver. This is the first day off I've had in months, and honestly I'm not sure why I have it. I showed up at her office at the same time I always do for training but there was no one there, just a big hole in the wall and no one could tell me where she had gone." She stretched her limbs out, intentionally poking her best friend in the ribs with her toe in the process. "So I figured I'd make the most of my time and just hope she doesn't get upset over me skipping a day."

Ino grabbed the extended foot and pulled, dragging the pinkette off the raised edge and under the water. She had time for only a few laughs at her friend's expense before Sakura resurfaced, glared angrily and sent a wave of steamy water into her face, which she briefly choked on.

The two glared at one another before launching into another attack. Water throwing quickly gave way to grappling, headlocks, hair-pulling and mouths full of hot water until they were sidetracked by the arrival of another.

"Sorry for taking so long," Hinata announced as she walked out of the dressing room, clad in a towel and feeling rather self-conscious. It wasn't often that she used any baths that weren't part of her family's land, but she'd been invited and hadn't wanted to be rude.

Sakura and Ino had stopped mid-tussle to stare at the young heiress, or at least, at a part of her.

"W-what?" she asked, feeling even more uncomfortable under the envious gaze of her former classmates.

Ino glanced at Sakura, then to Hinata and back again, reluctantly releasing her head. "Well, at least I still have you beat, Forehead."

Sakura got in one final elbow to her friend's stomach before sitting back to relax again.

"So," she said one the three had all settled in. "You two didn't have training or missions today, either?"

"We did, but Kurenai-sensei left early to visit Asuma in the hospital."

"Hospital? What happened?"

"Damnedest thing," Ino told them. "We were training out in the forest when all of a sudden, a paperweight comes flying out of nowhere and wangs him in the head. Knocked him out cold."

"...Paperweight?" Sakura asked, bemused.

"That was pretty much my first thought, too. We figured it probably wasn't some attack on us, what with it being...you know, a paperweight and all, so we lugged sensei to the hospital, and afterwards I ran into you two, and here we are."

Sakura wasn't sure what to say to that, so she opted for nothing and the group slipped back into silence.

"Speaking of training," Ino spoke again after a few minutes. "You're still planning to enter the next Chunin Exam with Choji and me, right?"

"Oh...um..."

The blonde groaned. "We're not going to go through this again, are we?"

"It just doesn't seem right, that's all."

Ino rolled her eyes; apparently they were going through it again. "Look Sakura, I get that you really want to wait for Sasuke-kun and Naruto to get back so you can take the exams with them, but you really need to consider a few things."

"Like what?" Sakura grumbled stubbornly.

"Like the fact that you're already talented enough that you could probably solo the entire exam if they would let you. I mean come on: you've been training under the Hokage herself for almost two years now. You should be on your way to becoming a jounin with Neji right now, and yet you're stuck as a genin with me and Choji. And I'll also point out that the only reason Choji and I are still genin is because we're waiting on your procrastinating ass. Believe me, we'd both rather have you join us than some younger newbie who's more likely to slow us down than help us."

"More like want me to carry you through it," she muttered under her breath.

"And another thing: You don't even know when Naruto will be back. You could end up waiting for him for another four or five years, for all you know. You really want to still be a genin that far down the road?"

"Well...no. But then I'd probably have to deal with him whining and complaining about how I got to become a chunin before he did," she claimed, trying to rationalize her decision.

"I'm sure Naruto-kun would understand and be happy for you, Sakura," Hinata said. That was Naruto after all. She could already see it: Sure, he might be upset at first, but it wouldn't take long before he'd be congratulating her on her success and then dragging her off to Ichiraku's to celebrate, and then...

Damnit. Even in her own fantasies Naruto was chasing after Sakura! Although, maybe if she found Naruto first and showed him how much she'd changed in the time he'd been gone, then he could take her to Ichiraku's to celebrate, and then...

Oh yes, that was much better.

Ino and Sakura stared at Hinata, who was staring off into space and giggling happily, before getting back to the matter at hand.

"And on top of that, there's the issue with Sasuke-kun."

"What issue?" Sakura asked.

"Well, even if you do manage to-"

"_When_ we do," she interrupted firmly, already knowing what Ino was implying.

"..._When_ you manage to bring him back to Konoha, who's to say that he'll even be allowed to take the exams?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sakura demanded.

Ino held her hands up placatingly. "I'm just saying that for all the time and effort you're going through to bring him back, he's still a missing nin, and if even half the stories that my dad has told me about recaptured missing nin are true, having his shinobi status revoked could end up being the least of his worries."

Sakura shook her head, not even wanting to consider the possibilities of that statement, much less argue about it. It wouldn't happen that way; things would be fine, if for no other reason than Naruto would make certain that they would be.

Everything would be fine.

"Fine, I'll join you for the next exams," she relented.

Ino sat back against the rock ledge, folding her arms. "Good."

Sakura did likewise. "Good."

Hinata glanced back and forth between the two, not liking the mounting tension and wondering how best to ease it. ...Might as well go with the tried and true method.

"So, what do you think Naruto-kun has been up to lately?"

Hey, thinking about Naruto always made her forget about _her_ problems.

Sakura smiled, happy for the abrupt change of subject. "If I know anything about Naruto, he's probably begging Jiraiya-sama to teach him some new super-cool jutsu."

"Let's just hope those are the only things he's teaching him," Ino commented. Seeing the identical looks she was receiving, she added, "What? Haven't you ever heard the saying that people start to emulate their role-models after spending enough time with them?"

Blushing at the implication, Hinata sank a bit deeper into the spring. "I'm...sure Naruto-kun would never behave like that."

Ino arched a perfectly managed eyebrow. "Oh really? You don't think a boy who created a jutsu that turns him into a naked girl when he was twelve would be even a little curious about looking at real women as he grew older?"

"If he knows what's good for him, he won't even be thinking about it," Sakura growled while cracking her knuckles menacingly.

Hinata bit her own knuckle in thought. Would Naruto really become a voyeuristic pervert like Jiraiya? That would certainly be bad. Unless he was planning to peep on her, then maybe it would be okay. But if he was to peep on other women, that would be very bad. Perhaps she could give him some kind of incentive to only look at her...

But before she had the chance to get lost in another fantasy, a newcomer dropped in on them. Literally.

All three girls pushed away from the thrashing person who had just appeared completely out of nowhere and promptly stumbled and fell under the water. All three girls subconsciously took up an aggressive stance as the person finally surfaced, coughing and sputtering behind a strange-looking mask.

"Damn you and your damn bathhouse fetish to Hell, Minato! If you weren't already dead I'd find and kick your ass eight ways to Sunday! And then I'd...I'd..." The ranting boy, as they now realized he was, stopped dead when he saw who he was currently sharing the hot spring with. "Oh sh-!"

And then he was gone, vanished just as quickly as he'd appeared, leaving the girls gawking in confusion, anger and embarrassment.

"Who the Hell was that?" Sakura shouted, sounding as pissed as she looked. "Where did he even come from? That wasn't a Shunshin that he used!"

Hinata was on the verge of passing out from too much blood to the head. _A stranger saw me naked! Before Naruto-kun had the chance to!_

"Hey, was...was that Naruto?" Ino wondered.

"What!" the other two shouted/squeaked in unison.

"Well, he had that blonde hair like Naruto's, and I don't know anyone else who would be caught dead wearing such an ugly orange mask."

xxx

Far away, Tobi had the sudden urge to smack a bitch.

xxx

"It couldn't have been," Sakura surmised. "He's still out somewhere with Jiraiya-sama. If he were back already we'd surely have heard, right?"

Ino shrugged. "Well, his voice was deeper and he had that mask on, but still..."

Hinata tuned them out. So...Naruto-kun _might_ have seen her naked. That might make it okay. Now she just had to wonder if he would be expecting her to return the favor...

Oh yes, that would be nice, wouldn't it?

xxx

"-it!"

Naruto looked around frantically, making absolutely certain that he wasn't in the presence of angry, naked female friends and teammates any longer. Finding himself lost within an unassuming jungle of some kind, he heaved a deep sigh of relief.

"Man, that was way too close!" He slipped the mask off his face, thanking Tobi and promising to kill the very next Akatsuki member he might happen upon just to pay the boy back for this. "If it hadn't been for this mask I'd be a broken, smoldering corpse right now. I can't believe of all the places I would happen to show up at, in would be in a bathhouse... in... Konoha."

A cliched breeze of awkward silence blew through.

"...I was in Konoha," he stated in a voice devoid of life.

As the truth of the matter finished hammering itself home, he slowly walked over to the nearest and sturdiest of redwoods, reared back, and headbutted the innocent tree as hard as he could. He then repeated the action sixteen more times until he could no longer stand up and calmly allowed the blissful darkness to take him, if only for a few short hours.

xxx

xxx

**You know, looking back on this story, I feel I may have gone overboard with all the naked women scenes. I should probably tone that down before I accidentally turn this comedy fic into full-blown porn. Course, some of you would probably like that, wouldn't you?**

**Ah well, more to come when it's written. 'til next time.**

**LL**


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